Elon Musk, SpaceX, and Tesla are being sued for $258 billion by a Dogecoin investor who has accused Musk of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency.
Plaintiff Keith Johnson accused Elon Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX of racketeering for touting Dogecoin and driving up the price and then letting the price of the cryptocurrency fall.
He is seeking to represent a class of people who have lost money investing in Dogecoin. Johnson is asking for $172 billion in treble damages and an additional $86 billion in damages. The lawsuit demands that Musk, SpaceX, and Tesla stop promoting Dogecoin. In addition, he would like Dogecoin trading to be declared gambling under New York State law.
“Defendants were aware since 2019 that Dogecoin had no value yet promoted Dogecoin to profit from its trading,” the complaint said. “Musk used his pedestal as World’s Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure and amusement.”
“Dogecoin is not a currency, stock, or security. It’s not backed by gold, other precious metal, or anything at all. You can’t eat it, grow it, or wear it,” according to the court filing.
“It doesn’t pay interest or dividend. It has no unique utility compared to other cryptocurrencies…It’s not secured by a government or private entity.”
“It’s simply a fraud whereby ‘greater fools’ are deceived into buying the coin at a higher price.”
Dogecoin is currently down 92% from its all-time high.
Software engineers Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus created Dogecoin in 2013. It was the first “meme coin,” meaning, it purposefully had no use case and was advertised as such. Dogecoin is currently trading at approximately $0.05. Its all-time high was 73 cents.
Did you invest in Dogecoin? What do you think will be the result of this lawsuit?
Hmmmm.
Didn’t Elon Musk appears on SNL and promote dogecoin with people putting money into it only to lose most of it shortly thereafter?