The richest person on the planet, Elon Musk, was sued this Thursday for $258 billion by a Dogecoin investor.

Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX sued for a pyramid scheme

In a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, plaintiff Keith Johnson, a Dogecoin investor, accused Musk, electric car company Tesla Inc, and space tourism company SpaceX of running a pyramid scheme to support the meme coin. He believes that they heavily touted Dogecoin and drove up its price, only to let the price go down. 

The complaint reads:

“Defendants were aware since 2019 that Dogecoin had no value yet promoted Dogecoin to profit from its trading. Musk used his pedestal as World’s Richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure, and amusement.”

Musk, who frequently references the meme coin on his Twitter account, is one of the most influential personalities in the crypto community. The plaintiff is reportedly using these tweets and Musk’s self-proclaimed “Dogefather” instance to prove that he has been controlling the price of the cryptocurrency and is liable for damages caused by the same to investors who trusted him and lost money when DOGE went from $0.74 to $0.05 in the recent crash.

The case Johnson v. Musk et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, also aggregates comments from Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and other big names questioning the value of Dogecoin. Until now, neither Tesla, SpaceX, nor Musk has commented on the complaint.

A serious loss for Dogecoin investors

Plaintiff said that the meme token’s strategic sell-off started around when Musk hosted the NBC show “Saturday Night Live” and called Dogecoin “a hustle.” 

Johnson seeks triple the $86 billion in damages that the plaintiff claims Dogecoin investors have lost since Musk first started promoting it. He also demands a restriction on Musk and his companies from promoting DOGE.