A disgruntled investor is suing Elon Musk and his companies Tesla and SpaceX for a whopping $258 billion, claiming they propped up a “crypto pyramid scheme” with their support for Dogecoin (DOGE).
Keith Johnson, the plaintiff, argues that DOGE is “simply a fraud whereby ‘greater fools’ are deceived into buying the coin at a higher price,” according to court documents filed with the US District Court in the Southern District of New York.
Johnson is asking the court to certify the case as a class-action lawsuit and is seeking $86 billion in damages for the class, plus treble damages of $172 billion.
He argues Musk and his companies’ “unethical, torturous and criminal conduct” promoting DOGE caused investors to sink billions of dollars into the crypto asset. He also claims Musk and his companies made $86 billion “as a result of their wire fraud, gambling enterprise, false advertising, deceptive practices, and other unlawful conduct.”
Musk, a crypto holder himself, has previously said he owns Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin.
Musk says he is a supporter of Dogecoin because he believes it is “the people’s crypto.” Tesla, Musk’s electric car company, started allowing customers to purchase merchandise with the popular memecoin in January.
The billionaire also said in May that SpaceX, his space transportation and aerospace manufacturing company, would soon accept DOGE as payment for select merchandise.
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