Elon Musk along with his two companies SpaceX and Tesla have been hit with a lawsuit that totals a staggering $258 billion.
The lawsuit has been filed by Keith Johnson, who claims that Musk, SpaceX and Tesla were involved in a racketeering scheme that manipulated the price of the Dogecoin, and promote the coin as a legitimate investment. "Defendants falsely and deceptively claim that Dogecoin is a legitimate investment when it has no value at all," the lawsuit reads. Notably, Johnson is going for class-action status on the suit and has intended to represent other investors who also believe that they have been illegally impacted by Musk.
Musk has been very public about his support of Dogecoin, which was originally created in 2013 as a "meme coin". Musk's support of the cryptocurrency brought major attention to the project, and between 2020 and 2021, its price pumped after Musk posted about it on Twitter. The attention brought to Dogecoin has secured it the 11th place on the charts for the highest market cap cryptocurrency, and when the project was at its highest value, it sported a $88 billion market cap.
Johnson is seeking $86 billion in damages, paired with triple damages of $172 billion, equating to $258 billion. Furthermore, Johnson has requested that Musk and his two companies be prevented from promoting Dogecoin in any way.
The plaintiff has large allegations on his hands, proving that Dogecoin is a form of gambling and has no uses will be difficult when Musk has worked with the project creators to improve its network, as well as said that SpaceX and Tesla will be accepting it as a form of payment sometime in the future.
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