Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been sued for $258 billion by a Dogecoin investor who accused him of running a pyramid scheme to lend support to the cryptocurrency.
The complaint was filed in the federal court in Manhattan, wherein plaintiff Keith Johnson accused Elon Musk of racketeering for attempting to sell Dogecoin and driving up its price, and then letting it fall.
Johnson stated that the defendants, since 2019, were aware that Dogecoin had no value but still promoted the cryptocurrency to gain profits from its trade.
He added that Musk used his position as the world’s richest person to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme to get profit, exposure and amusement.
The complaint is also based in the comments from billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who have questioned the value of the cryptocurrency.
Foreign media stated that Tesla, SpaceX and Musk’s lawyer did not respond to requests for their comment.
Johnson’s lawyer also has not responded to requests by foreign media regarding the evidence they had to prove that Dogecoin was worthless and that the defendants ran a pyramid scheme.
The plaintiff is seeking $86 billion in damages, representing the decline in the value of Dogecoin’s market value since May 2021, and aims to get it tripled.
Johnson also wants that Musk and his companies be blocked from promoting Dogecoin and that the trading of Dogecoin be declared gambling under federal and New York law.
Johnson said that the selling of Dogecoin began when Musk hosted the NBC show ‘Saturday Night Live’, and, playing a fictitious financial expert on a ‘Weekend Update’ called the cryptocurrency “a hustle”.
Tesla had in early 2021 bought $1.5 billion of bitcoin and had accepted it as a payment for its vehicles for some time.
