Elon Musk is accused of manipulating the price of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. A lawsuit filed by an unlucky investor is therefore seeking $172 billion in damages from the founder of Tesla and SpaceX.
This Thursday, June 16, Keith Johnson, an investor who placed money in Dogecoin (DOGE), filed a complaint against Elon Musk in federal court in Manhattan (New York). The plaintiff is also attacking the two companies founded by the billionaire, Tesla and SpaceX.
The man claims to be “defrauded by a pyramid fraud around Dogecoin set up by the defendants”. According to him, Elon Musk set up a pyramid scheme or Ponzi scheme. This is a scam scheme that relies solely on the cash injected by new victims.
He claims 258 billion dollars from Elon Musk
“Defendants falsely claim that Dogecoin is a legitimate investment when it has no value”, alleges Keith Johnson in his complaint. He invites other investors who lost money to Dogecoin to join the lawsuit in order to convert it into class action.
The plaintiff argues that investors have lost $86 billion since April 2019. He demands that Elon Musk reimburse this amount and pay double in damages, for a total of $258 billion. Johnson’s complaint claims that the billionaire and his companies should no longer be allowed to discuss cryptocurrency.
According to the investor, Musk knowingly “inflated the price, capitalization and trading volumes” currency by communicating on the subject. He takes as an example the various tweets published by the richest man in the world on his Twitter account, which has more than 98 million subscribers.
Read also: Elon Musk describes his future of Twitter, made of more freedoms, less boredom… and layoffs
Elon Musk and Dogecoin, an ambiguous relationship
Elon Musk has a contrasting relationship with Dogecoin. He repeatedly touted the merits of cryptocurrency last year, propelling the DOGE course over 70 cents. Following the fall of the cryptocurrency market, the token is however only worth 0.060 cents.
On Twitter, Tesla’s self-proclaimed Technoking notably announced his intention to send Dogecoin to the moon thanks to SpaceX. Elon Musk went further by accepting payments in DOGE on the Tesla online store. It also named one of its SpaceX satellites after the token.
At the same time, the entrepreneur did not hesitate to call Dogecoin a scam. During a notable appearance on comedy show Saturday Night Live in May 2021, he openly mocked the motto. It is also since this tackle that the price of cryptocurrency has been falling.
For the record, Dogecoin was created in 2013 by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer. It was aboutjust a joke meant to poke fun at the cryptocurrency world, which was still in its infancy at the time.
Bloomberg
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