Elon Musk Sued For $258 Billion Over Allegedly Defrauding Crypto Investors In Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme

Elon Musk

Elon Musk Sued For $258 Billion Over Allegedly Defrauding Crypto Investors In Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme

Elon Musk might be paying up billions soon if found guilty in the latest lawsuit he’s facing.

Elon Musk, SpaceX, and Tesla, Inc. were sued for $258 billion over allegations they are a part of a fraudulent scheme to back the cryptocurrency Dogecoin. According to reports, billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk and his companies have been sued by Keith Johnson, “an American citizen who was defrauded out of money by defendants’ Dogecoin Crypto Pyramid Scheme.”

Johnson is expected to represent a class of investors who have allegedly lost money from trading Dogecoin since April 2019. He is seeking the amount of $86 billion in damages, as well as triple damages of $172 billion.

In addition, Johnson is asking for an order blocking Elon Musk and his influential companies from promoting the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, and declaring that Dogecoin trading constitutes gambling under US and New York law.

Elon Musk

Johnson claims the defendants put in place an illegal racketeering enterprise to inflate Dogecoin’s price. The lawsuit adds that,

“since Elon Musk and his corporations SpaceX and Tesla, Inc. began purchasing, developing, promoting, supporting, and operating Dogecoin since 2019, [the] Plaintiff and the class has lost approximately $86 billion in this Crypto Pyramid Scheme.”

Johnson said in his complaint,

“Defendants falsely and deceptively claim that Dogecoin is a legitimate investment when it has no value at all.”

Reportedly, Johnson’s lawsuit includes accusations of Musk gathering “the support of celebrities, influencers, and billionaire investors,” as well as thousands of followers on social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to boost “the price, trading volume, and market cap of Dogecoin.”

On Thursday (June 16), Dogecoin was trading at about 5 cents a coin. At its all-time high, the cryptocurrency reached 74 cents a coin last year before losing those gains. Musk has not yet commented on the lawsuit.

Musk’s net worth is reported as $201.4 billion. As previously reported, the entrepreneur and businessman recently landed a new deal to buy the social networking platform, Twitter. Twitter’s board agreed to sell the company to Musk for $44 billion on April 25, 2022. In his offer letter to Twitter, Musk wrote,