Elon Musk was sued this Thursday for $258 billion by a Dogecoin investor who accused him of carrying out a pyramid scheme to support cryptocurrency.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, plaintiff Keith Johnson accused Musk, the electric car company Tesla and to the space tourism company SpaceX blackmail for promoting Dogecoin and make its price rise, only to drop it later.
Musk is CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX.
“Defendants were aware as early as 2019 that Dogecoin was worthless, and yet promoted Dogecoin to profit,” the lawsuit says. “Musk used the pedestal of himself as the richest man in the world to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin pyramid scheme for profit, exposure and fun.”
The complaint also adds comments from Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and others who question the value of cryptocurrency.
Tesla, SpaceX and an attorney for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An attorney for Johnson did not respond to inquiries about what specific evidence his client has or hopes to have showing that Dogecoin has no value and that the defendants ran a pyramid scheme.
Johnson is seeking $86 billion in damages, representing the decline in Dogecoin’s market value since May 2021, and wants it tripled.
The lawsuit says that the dogecoin liquidation It started around the time Musk hosted NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” and, playing a fictional financial expert in a “Weekend Update” segment, called Dogecoin “a scam.”
In February 2021, Tesla said it had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and for a short time accepted it as payment for vehicles.