Elon Musk sued for $258 billion over alleged Dogecoin pyramid scheme

[icymist]

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK, June 16 (Reuters) - Elon Musk was sued for $258 billion on Thursday by a Dogecoin investor who accused him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency.

In a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, plaintiff Keith Johnson accused Musk, electric car company Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and space tourism company SpaceX of racketeering for touting Dogecoin and driving up its price, only to then let the price tumble.

Musk is 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.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/elon-musk-sued-258-billion-over-alleged-dogecoin-pyramid-scheme-2022-06-16/?taid=62ab826183c4c60001050995&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter&utm_source=reddit

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LOL! Big oopsie there Muskrat.

[turbinetree]

1. This should be interesting......

[Lovie777]

2. Ya know he's gonna blame Democrats . ...

And It never fails, GQPs are always the victims.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Complex case to prove

and probably rely on experts of markets, finance, law. My guess is this is not going anywhere.

[hlthe2b]

4. Only underscores that brilliance in one area does not preclude lacking common sense.

And we've seen his lacking in the latter for months now.

[SharonAnn]

6. I haven't seen any sign of his brilliance. Just hucksterism and cons.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

8. Sounds like someone familiar?

[hlthe2b]

9. I think you have to give him his due on SpaceX

He is pretty clearly autistic so his intelligence is pretty unique to him and perhaps not what all come to expect, but he is intelligent in at least in some areas.

[NullTuples]

14. Autistics span the range of so-called IQs. He does have a certain talent though...

...that is usually learned by people of a certain level and background of privilege. Something to do with the ability to continually convince investors to pump more money into his schemes which he then uses to keep prior schemes afloat. And always offer a new, bright shiny object rather than focus on the objective performance of anything he's promised.

[OnlinePoker]

17. Yep, cons like Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Boring Company

All scams that don't produce anything.

[SunSeeker]

22. He was born rich and used his money and hucksterism to get even richer.

He bought most his companies. Paypal and Tesla were other people's ideas that he invested in.

The Boring Company is a wasteful vanity project that only exists because of Musk's hucksterism.

A number of civil engineering experts and tunneling industry veterans have questioned whether Musk can render tunnels more quickly and cheaply than competitors. A tunneling industry publication, Tunnelling Journal, has dismissed the company as a “vanity project” and inconsistent in its promised offerings.[22] The much-hyped tunnel project constructed at the convention center in Las Vegas turned out to be a single-lane underground roadway less than a mile long, driven by conventional Tesla automobiles, constructed at a total cost of $48 million. Musk's planned tunnels have also been criticized for lacking such safety features as emergency exit corridors, ventilation systems, or fire suppression. In addition, the tunnels themselves are projected to be only one lane wide, making it impossible for vehicles to pass one another in the event of collision, mechanical failure, or other traffic obstruction, and instead would shut the entire tunnel down.[115][116]

Critics have argued that the low capacity of The Boring Company's projects make them inefficient and less equitable than existing public transit solutions, with only a fraction of the capacity of a conventional rapid-transit subway.[117][118][119][120] Musk has been criticized for his comments in 2017 disparaging public transit.[121]

James Moore, director of transportation engineering at the University of Southern California, said that "there are cheaper ways to provide better transportation for large numbers of people", such as managing traffic with tolls.[120] Public transit consultant Jarrett Walker called the Boring Company "wildly hyped", and criticized how the company "dazzled city governments and investors with visions of an efficient subway where you never have to get out of your car, turns out to be a paved road tunnel."[119]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company

[C Moon]

5. That's' not a drop in the bucket for anyone. Wow! That's a lot of money!

[Initech]

7. Gee... Dogecoin was a scam this whole time? Saw it coming!

[unblock]

10. Fun stuff, but this would be a very tough case to win

Notwithstanding some controversy, I think it's very difficult to prove (even merely to a preponderance of evidence) that cryptocurrencies are inherently worthless, and that musk knew or should have known this.

[NullTuples]

16. crypto coins cost more to make than they are worth.

And that was at their peak, before real world costs like power generation fuels spiked.

One could argue that any worthless object that is agreed upon to have value, has value; that's the basis of fiat currency after all. But there's a slight difference between a managed national currency and one that is inherently structured to favor anyone who buys in earlier, assuming continual growth.

[Cha]

11. Please Karma Make MuskRAT PAY!

💙💛

[Cha]

12. MUSK legal to vote in Texas? - voted QAnon to flip Dem seat & calls for a Red Wave

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=16804250

💙💛

[LudwigPastorius]

13. Yes, Musk is a scumbag who manipulated the crypto market with his tweets, but...

I would be surprised if that was illegal. At least, not yet.

[sarcasmo]

15. Today is full of good news.

[OnlinePoker]

18. Maximum market value of Dogecoin all-time was $85.15 Billion on 4 May 2021

Market Cap today $7.46 Billion. All crypto's are in the toilet. Bitcoin, the granddaddy of them all has a market cap of 30% of its maximum from last November. These were sucker bets from the beginning. Great if you buy low/sell high, but most people who gambled on these have watched their profits tank in a very short period.

[Mr.Bill]

19. Musk is always going to be someone

who wants to be in the spotlight but can't stay out of trouble. And he's willing to do the latter to attain the former.

[ymetca]

20. What's even nuttier

is some cadre of bored billionaires is gonna buy up the stuff on the cheap then lather, rinse repeat the whole process.

Whatever we pretend to have, it barely resembles any kind of financial system anymore.

People starve while billionaires play money games.

And governments don't appear to have any kind of means to rein it in, for fear the whole mess will collapse again.

[former9thward]

21. Silly lawsuit.

Plaintiff wants to be paid something to go away.

[Crowman2009]

23. More like Dodgy coin.