A US judge has set Tron founder and CEO Justin Sun’s lawsuit against Bloomberg back a peg after denying a temporary restraining order and injunction over publishing information about his cryptocurrency holdings.
In a Monday filing in the US District Court for the District of Delaware, Judge Colm Connolly sided with Bloomberg in Sun’s lawsuit over “disclosed amounts of specific cryptocurrency he owns.” According to the filings, the holdings included about 60 billion Tron (TRX), 17,000 Bitcoin (BTC), 224,000 Ether (ETH) and 700 million Tether (USDt).
The publication had reached out to Sun’s team in February to gather information about the Tron founder’s wealth for its Billionaires Index.
Sun claimed Bloomberg planned to publish “specific financial holdings” which were “unverified, confidential and private,” and filed a complaint seeking relief on Aug. 11. After saying he and Bloomberg were “engaged in discussions” over the matter, Sun’s lawyers renewed the motion on Sept. 11.
The initial complaint sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary and permanent injunction “prohibiting Bloomberg from publishing the amounts of any specific cryptocurrency” owned by Sun, both of which the judge denied on Monday.
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According to Connolly, Sun failed to establish that Bloomberg had promised him the data would not be made publicly available. In addition, he failed to show that the release of information on his crypto holdings would make him an “increased target for hacking, phishing, social engineering, kidnapping, or bodily injury,” in part due to his own crypto disclosures through social media.
“[…] Sun’s own highly detailed disclosure of his Bitcoin assets undercuts his representation that he is now under threat because Bloomberg published estimates of his cryptocurrency holdings,” said Connolly, adding:
“Sun himself has disclosed far more specific information about his Bitcoin holdings than what Bloomberg published.”
It was unclear whether Sun intended to pursue another legal avenue moving forward.
Cointelegraph reached out to a spokesperson for the Tron founder for comment, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
Sun is still under scrutiny from US lawmakers
The Tron founder was named in a lawsuit against the crypto company over allegations of offering unregistered securities filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2023. However, once US President Donald Trump took office and former SEC Chair Gary Gensler departed, the agency asked for a stay in the case.
Last week, two members of Congress asked the SEC to answer questions related to the commission dropping its case against Sun.
They suggested that the Tron founder’s “sizable investments” in crypto ventures controlled by Trump and his family, including World Liberty Financial and his memecoin, may have influenced its decision.
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