- The amended lawsuit claimed that Musk and his fleet of companies made intentional efforts to drive up Dogecoin price by over 36,000 percent in 24 months.
- Musk responds that he still supports Dogecoin.
There has been an expansion to the $258 billion legal complaint accusing Elon Musk of operating a pyramid scheme with his support for the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. A new Reuters report states that six new defendants and seven new investor plaintiffs have now been included in the lawsuit.
The amended complaint filed in a Manhattan federal court on Tuesday night states that Musk and his businesses deliberately pushed up the Dogecoin price by more than 36,000 percent over two years. Musk’s businesses mentioned in the lawsuit are SpaceX (his spaceflight firm), Boring (his tunnel construction company), and Tesla (his electric car manufacturing company). Then, Musk allowed Dogecoin’s value to crash through the same methods he used to push it up.
The suit claims that the crash enabled Musk to make gains worth tens of billions of dollars at the expense of other Dogecoin investors. The plaintiffs also argued that Musk knew from the get-go that Dogecoin didn’t have any intrinsic value and that all its value was purely from the marketing perspective. Yet, he used his influence on social media platforms to promote Dogecoin as a legitimate investment.
None of Musk’s companies mentioned in the lawsuit have made official statements on the matter, and neither of them agreed to requests for comments from the media. It is worth noting that tesla banned its media relations department two years ago. The first version of this lawsuit was filed three months ago when a Dogecoin investor alleged that Musk was running a Dogecoin pyramid scheme.
More allegations against Musk
The complainants also wrote in the amended lawsuit that Musk said in an interview that his employees at SpaceX and Tesla asked him to keep supporting the cryptocurrency in question. Soon after the amended complaint, Musk wrote on Twitter that he would continue to support Dogecoin. The Dogecoin foundation is also included as a defendant in the amended lawsuit.
The foundation claims to be a nonprofit offering Dogecoin support and governance. However, the foundation hasn’t responded to requests for comment nor has made any official statement about the matter. The $258 billion worth of damages is triple the estimated drop in Dogecoin’s value between May 2021 and this time.
Around May 2021, Musk appeared on a segment of NBC’s Saturday Night Live show called the weekend update. During the interview, Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, called Dogecoin “a hustle.” Dogecoin currently trades at $0.06, according to our data. That is a massive drop from its $0.74 price as of May 2021.
The case is Johnson et al. vs. Musk et al. with no. 22-05037. It is filed at the US District Court, Southern District of New York. Besides the monetary compensation, Johnson wants the court to permanently sanction Musk and his companies from promoting the meme digital currency.
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