A Dogecoin investor was not happy with Elon Musks’ recurring promotions of the meme-coin “Dogecoin”. So much so that the investor decided to sue the world’s richest man for $258 Billion, accusing Musk of “running a pyramid scheme” in order to profit off of Dogecoin.
In the complaint which was filed in federal court in Manhattan, the plaintiff Keith Johnson charged Musk, with racketeering for promoting Dogecoin and raising its price before allowing it to fall.
Johnson accused the Tesla CEO of promoting an undervalued coin, like Dogecoin was at the time, in order to manipulate the market and profit from the cryptocurrency’s sudden popularization.
“Musk used his pedestal as World’s Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure, and amusement,” The complaint said.
Johnson is requesting $86 billion in damages, which would treble the market value of Dogecoin since May 2021.
Additionally, he wants a judge to rule that trading Dogecoin is illegal under both federal and New York law and to stop Musk and his businesses from promoting the meme-coin.
According to the lawsuit, Dogecoin’s selloff started around the time Musk hosted the NBC program “Saturday Night Live”.
In the skit called “Weekend Update”, Musk’s character asked to be called “The Dogefather” and referred to Dogecoin as “a hustle” while posing as a bogus financial expert.
Lawsuit Expansion
Since the original lawsuit, several other investor plaintiffs have been added to the complaint.
An amendment complaining states that the price of Dogecoin was artificially been driven up by over 36,000% over the course of two years.
The lawsuit also claims that Musk used the influence of his world-renowned companies, Tesla and SpaceX in order to artificially manipulate Dogecoin’s value before it crashed.
It also states that the defendants knew all along that the currency had no inherent worth and that its value “depended solely on marketing,” the defendants “profited tens of billions of dollars” as a result at the cost of other Dogecoin investors, the lawsuit declared.
Alongside Musk, Dogecoin Foundation was also added to one of the lawsuit defendants. Neither has stated a comment regarding the lawsuit so far.
