Elon Musk Sued for $258 Billion for Manipulating Dogecoin's Price

Billionaire Elon Musk, electric car company Tesla, and space tourism company SpaceX have been sued by a Dogecoin investor for $258 billion for running a "pyramid scheme" and manipulating the price of Dogecoin.

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by two software engineers to build a payment system as a "joke", making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. Upon launching in 2013, Dogecoin had been highly praised by platforms including Reddit because of its low price, becoming a popular crypto for online rewards.

Musk bought a lot of Dogecoin in 2019. However, he asked last May his 54 million Twitter followers: "Do you want Tesla to accept Doge?", which came just days after he called Dogecoin a "hustle" during his guest host appearance on Saturday Night Live – a United States comedy sketch show. It sent the meme-inspired cryptocurrency's price reeling after a 700% rally in a month.

The plaintiff, Keith Johnson, claimed that Musk had controlled the price change of Dogecoin, which caused his great loss. "Defendants were aware since 2019 that Dogecoin had no value yet promoted Dogecoin to profit from its trading." Johnson stated: "Musk used his pedestal as World's Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure and amusement." 

Johnson asked the court to order a ban on Musk from promoting Dogecoin and declare that trading Dogecoin is gambling under US federal and New York law. He intended to classify his lawsuit as a class action, on behalf of all Dogecoin investors who have suffered losses since 2019.

The unit price of Dogecoin has plummeted from $0.74 last May to $0.058 at current, and its market value has dropped by $86 billion. Johnson's claim of $258 billion is three times that amount.

Musk was yet to react to the lawsuit.