In a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan,
complainant Keith Johnson accused Musk, electric car company Tesla and space
tourism company SpaceX of racketeering for touting Dogecoin and driving up its
price, only to then let the price tumble.
Musk is the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX.
"Defendants were aware since 2019 that Dogecoin had no
value yet promoted Dogecoin to profit from its trading," the complaint
said. "Musk used his pedestal as World's Richest man to operate and
manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure and
amusement."
The complaint also aggregates comments from Warren Buffett,
Bill Gates, and others questioning the value of cryptocurrency.
Tesla, SpaceX, and a lawyer for Musk did not immediately
respond to requests for comment.
A lawyer for Johnson did not immediately respond to requests
for comment on what specific evidence his client has or expects to have that proves
Dogecoin is worthless and the defendants ran a pyramid scheme.
Johnson is seeking $86 billion in damages, representing the
decline in Dogecoin's market value since May 2021, and wants it tripled.
He also wants to block Musk and his companies from promoting
Dogecoin and a judge to declare that trading Dogecoin is gambling under federal
and New York law.
The complaint said Dogecoin's selloff began around the time
Musk hosted the NBC show "Saturday Night Live and, playing a fictitious
financial expert on a "Weekend Update" segment, called Dogecoin
"a hustle."
Tesla in February 2021 said it had bought $1.5 billion of
Bitcoin and for a short time accepted it as payment for vehicles.
Dogecoin traded at about 5.8 cents on Thursday, down from its May 2021 peak of
about 74 cents.
The case is Johnson v. Musk et al, U.S. District Court,
Southern District of New York, No. 22-05037. © Reuters
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