Elon Musk was sued yesterday by a Dogecoin investor accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency that cost USD $258 billion.
A complaint was filed in federal court in Manhattan, where plaintiff Keith Johnson accused Musk, electric car company Tesla Inc and space tourism company SpaceX of racketeering for touting Dogecoin and driving up its price, only to then let the price tumble.
“Musk used his pedestal as World’s Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure and amusement,” Johnson said.
Johnson is seeking $86 billion in damages, representing the decline in Dogecoin’s market value since May 2021, and wants it tripled.
He also wants to block Musk and his companies from promoting Dogecoin and a judge to declare that trading Dogecoin is gambling under federal and New York law.
Tesla in February 2021 said it had bought $1.5 billion of bitcoin and for a short time accepted it as payment for vehicles.
Dogecoin traded at about 5.8 cents yesterday, down from its May 2021 peak of about 74 cents. The case of Johnson and Musk is in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.
