While Elon Musk has been busy plotting his purchase of Twitter just so he can turn it into TikTok, one crypto investor has slapped Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX with a whopping $258 billion lawsuit, claiming that the self-described “Techno King” is part of a crypto pyramid scheme.
As Bloomberg reports, a man by the name of Keith Johnson, who is described in the lawsuit as “an American citizen who was defrauded out of money by defendants’ Dogecoin Crypto Pyramid Scheme,” is tired of Musk regularly touting the benefits of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that was originally created as a joke, when he knows full well (at least according to Johnson) that it’s worthless. As Bob Van Voris wrote for Bloomberg:
Johnson is seeking to represent a class of people who have lost money trading in Dogecoin since April 2019. He is asking for $86 billion in damages, plus triple damages of $172 billion, as well as an order blocking Musk and the companies from promoting Dogecoin, and declaring that Dogecoin trading constitutes gambling under US and New York law.
According to Johnson’s complaint, the grift began on May 8, 2021, when Musk hosted SNL. During the show’s “Weekend Update” segment, Musk appeared as Lloyd Ostertag, a fictional financial expert, who sung the praises of crypto and Dogecoin in particular. (In reality, Musk’s flirtation with Dogecoin began a bit earlier; he first tweeted about it in December 2020.)
Musk’s regular teases about Dogecoin have typically been followed by enormous surges in interest in the coin. After one tweet from The Boring Company founder on April 15, 2021—just a couple weeks ahead of his SNL appearance—Dogecoin saw a 100 percent rise in price:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1382552587099062272
In December 2021, Musk announced that Tesla would begin accepting Dogecoin as a form of payment. In Johnson’s mind, this is all evidence of Musk’s complicity in promoting a worthless meme coin for his own personal enjoyment.
“Musk used his pedestal as World’s Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure, and amusement,” Johnson’s complaint reads.
Representatives for Musk, Tesla and SpaceX did not return requests for comment.
(Via Bloomberg)