Dogecoin investor sues Elon Musk for $258B over alleged pyramid scheme

Elon Musk was sued for $258 billion by a Dogecoin investor who accused him of organizing a pyramid scheme to support the Dogecoin cryptocurrency.

In an official complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, plaintiff Keith Johnson accused Elon Musk, electric car firm Tesla Inc. and space firm SpaceX of racketeering for touting Dogecoin and driving up its price, only to let the price tumble.

Musk has frequently referenced the shiba inu dog-themed cryptocurrency on his Twitter account, mentioning that it often caused the cryptocurrency’s price to spike.

The plaintiff in this suit, Keith Johnson, seems to use those tweets and Elon Musk’s references to himself as the “Dogefather” as proof that Musk has been controlling the cryptocurrency and is liable for damages among investors who have lost money as the token has tumbled from its high of nearly $0.74 to just over $0.05 in recent days.

The lawsuit calls for triple the damages of $86 billion, which is how much the plaintiff alleges has been lost by Dogecoin investors since Musk began tweeting about it.

The lawsuit also aggregates comments from Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and others questioning cryptocurrency’s value.

The lawsuit said Dogecoin’s selloff began around the time Musk hosted the famous NBC show “Saturday Night Live,” playing a fictitious financial expert on the “Weekend Update” segment, called Dogecoin “a hustle.”