Elon Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX face $258 billion lawsuit for allegedly running a Dogecoin...

[midian182]

What just happened? Elon Musk and his companies are doubtlessly used to being hit with lawsuits, but this one is probably the largest and perhaps most unusual they've had to deal with. Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX are all being sued for $258 billion—not million—over claims they ran a pyramid scheme to support Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency Musk has often praised on Twitter.

As per Reuters, plaintiff Keith Johnson filed his complaint in federal court in Manhattan, accusing Musk, the EV maker, and the space tourism company of racketeering for promoting Dogecoin to push up its price, only to then let it crash.

"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."

"Defendants falsely and deceptively claim that Dogecoin is a legitimate investment when it has no value at all," the complaint added.

Johnson wants to represent a class of people who have lost money trading in Dogecoin since April 2019.

The Dogefather
SNL May 8

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 28, 2021

Johnson is asking for $86 billion in damages, which represents the decline in Dogecoin's market value since May 2021, plus triple damages of $172 billion. He also wants to block Musk and the companies from promoting Dogecoin and a judge to declare that trading Dogecoin is gambling under federal and New York law.

Musk, who has long been accused of indirectly affecting the price of cryptos through his tweets, sent Doge skyrocketing in December 2020 with his "One Word: Doge" tweet. Musk pushed it higher in April last year when he called himself "The Dogefather," making Dogecoin the fourth largest crypto by market cap. It's not all been praise, though: he said Doge was a "hustle" on his Saturday Night Live appearance—Johnson claims this was the start of the crypto's fall—and he recently slammed its co-creator for calling the billionaire a "grifter."

Like other cryptos, Dogecoin is currently at its lowest price in years: $0.0571, a level it hasn't seen since April 2020. Its market cap is now $7.6 billion, and while that's no small figure, it's far from the $88 billion Doge reached at its peak.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/94980-elon-musk-tesla-spacex-face-258-billion-lawsuit.html

 

[VitalyT]

Elon Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX face $258 billion lawsuit for allegedly running a Dogecoin pyramid scheme

Don't use words "lawsuit" and "allegedly" in the same sentence, because the former implies presence of proof, while the latter imp-lies the lack of proof.

I, for one, have no doubt that Musk was the ring leader behind Dogecoin, running a pump-and-dump campaign for his own profit.

 

[Geralt]

258 billion dollars!? That guy is extremely greedy. Go work and earn money honestly, miserable human being!

 

[DSirius]

This is the headline story of the day for sure. Though it will be hard to prove that Elon actually broke the law in court would be interesting to follow story from now on.

 

[Thanthan]

Don't use words "lawsuit" and "allegedly" in the same sentence, because the former implies presence of proof, while the latter imp-lies the lack of proof.

I, for one, have no doubt that Musk was the ring leader behind Dogecoin, running a pump-and-dump campaign for his own profit.

A lawsuit, even if evidence exists to support it, only alleges that a set of events have happened. The events are only considered to have happened if a judge decides so based on the evidence. The article is correct in using this wording. A lawsuit can be wrongful, fraudulent or lack the necessary evidence for a judge to conclude in favour of the plaintiff, and that is taken into account by Techspot when they use this wording.

 

[Uncle Al]

No doubt Elon will use his newest toy to broadcast all the "facts" about his innocence ..... when is the FTC and SEC going to finally lower the boom on this clown?!?!?! He is an embarrisment to all of his companies and employee's but don't say so in writing or you'll be fired for disloyality!!!

 

[R00sT3R]

As usual, the only winners from any of this will be the bottom feeding, parasite lawyers.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

People are crying because a cryptocoin lost them money? GTFO.

Oh boo-hoo, you didn't get rich quick. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Just because Elon is part of dogecoin and he tweeted "Doge" and "The Dogefather" - you people are f'ing stupid for dumping your money into it. So what if he's part of dogecoin, he didn't guarantee you anything if you backed the coin and he didn't ask you to back the coin. He even later said that dogecoin is a "hustle" on SNL as part of a bit.....people in this day and age cannot take a joke. What a bunch of f'ing losers.

I haven't watched SNL for maybe 20 years now, but I just watched the skit with Elon Musk and they're just ripping on dogecoin and making fun of digital currencies as a whole (I found it mildly humorous). Anyone who came away from watching that clip and thought that Elon was trying to do pump and dump with dogecoin, you are stupid. Plan, flat out stupid and you got what you deserved.

Stupid people and their money are soon parted.

 

[Endymio]

I, for one, have no doubt that Musk was the ring leader behind Dogecoin, running a pump-and-dump campaign...

Translation: who needs evidence; just grab your pitchforks and let's go have some fun!

As for anyone who lost money on Dogecoin, I have exactly zero sympathy:

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a "joke", making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies...

 

[Lounds]

Musk is like a religous figure these stupid people.

 

[JKnight]

Musk is like a religous figure these stupid people.

More like cult leader.

 

[m4a4]

Sounds like this person doesn't know how to spend his money wisely. First by trying to buy a high risk asset with the hopes of cashing out rich, and now he's had a lawyer convince him that this would yield that big payout he was dreaming of...

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Don't use words "lawsuit" and "allegedly" in the same sentence, because the former implies presence of proof, while the latter imp-lies the lack of proof.

This is factually incorrect.

Anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason in America.

Further, "allegedly" takes no position of guilt or innocence or proof - simply what is being alleged by the one bringing the suit and/or charges.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Q: How can you tell that someone has been involved in shady operations?
A: They personally have over $100,000,000 in assets.

I've said in the past that Musk is a self-absorbed prick but people are so innately programmed to worship the rich that I got responses with words like "visionary" as if that's a good thing.

You know who else were visionaries? Every brutal dictator to ever seize power. In popular fiction, visionaries included Emperor Palpatine and Khan Noonian-Singh. Not exactly great role-models, eh?

Unless they truly care about others, visionaries have a tendency to be incredibly evil because the motivation for their "visions" is about THEM, not the world. Thus, there are a million Palpatines for every one Yoda.

Having a crap-tonne of money doesn't make one good, quite the contrary really (as we've seen over and over again). If someone is a billionaire, it means that they're at the very least, a sociopath with narcissistic tendencies. If they weren't, they would have stopped accumulating wealth long before they reached even $100,000,000.

Personally, I couldn't imagine having more than $5,000,000 to my name because at that point, I could do pretty much whatever I wanted for the rest of my life. To keep trying to accumulate wealth beyond what you need to provide for yourself and/or your family is a sign of a dangerous mental illness and it is damaging to the world economy.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

I, for one, have no doubt that Musk was the ring leader behind Dogecoin, running a pump-and-dump campaign for his own profit.

Yes, of course....
and as you are well aware that crypto is not legitimate currency and therefore unregulated, there is no case to be made

Nothing to see here, now move along!

 

[YouShallNotPass]

"Defendants falsely and deceptively claim that Dogecoin is a legitimate investment when it has no value at all," the complaint added.

It would be interesting when the lawsuit get to the point to discuss the value of doge coin and comparing it to other coins like bitcoins. They will have a hard time to explain why bitcoins has value but doge coin don't as they are both the same kind of thing. They just have different scale. Both are being mined publicly using computing resources.

 

[jason lee]

"Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a "joke", making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies..."

Any investor that decides to invest in the crypto knowing this, it's on them. Oh, you lost money investing in a digital coin created as a joke and now you want someone else to pay and make you a billionaire ? What a ridiculous lawsuit. Hope the plaintiffs end up having to eat the legal fees for both sides.

 

[Avro Arrow]

258 billion dollars!? That guy is extremely greedy. Go work and earn money honestly, miserable human being!

I don't think that you understand the reasoning for this amount. It's not because of greed, it's because he'll never get that amount (we all know this) but it still has to be a crap-tonne of money for Musk to even feel it. Are you really so naïve as to think that ANY billionaire made their money honestly?

No doubt Elon will use his newest toy to broadcast all the "facts" about his innocence ..... when is the FTC and SEC going to finally lower the boom on this clown?!?!?! He is an embarrisment to all of his companies and employee's but don't say so in writing or you'll be fired for disloyality!!!

Yeah, I saw that article as well:
Reuters - SpaceX fires at least five for letter criticizing Elon Musk
Autocratic dictators are all the same. They can't handle being criticized and eliminate anyone who dares to do so.

Stupid people and their money are soon parted.

I agree but we still have laws that allow recourse against predatory business practices.

Sounds like this person doesn't know how to spend his money wisely. First by trying to buy a high risk asset with the hopes of cashing out rich, and now he's had a lawyer convince him that this would yield that big payout he was dreaming of...

Maybe he's one of those "You don't pay if we don't win" lawyers.

 

[nnguy2]

Musk is like a religous figure these stupid people.

Be careful the" freedom of speech" cult might try to ban this comment.

 

[PEnnn]

Don't use words "lawsuit" and "allegedly" in the same sentence, because the former implies presence of proof, while the latter imp-lies the lack of proof.

I, for one, have no doubt that Musk was the ring leader behind Dogecoin, running a pump-and-dump campaign for his own profit.

A lawsuit, till it reaches a verdict, ALWAYS alledges.

If you're worried about Musky being charged with manipulating stocks, that's a different story.

 

[wiyosaya]

Be careful the" freedom of speech" cult might try to ban this comment.

Whether the cult likes it or not, they will only figure out Musk after Musk has completed his purchase of Twitter, if he ever does. And then it will be the equivalent of Truth Social banning people talking about January 6th. https://variety.com/2022/digital/ne...n-6-hearings-according-to-reports-1235290726/

 

[PEnnn]

258 billion dollars!? That guy is extremely greedy. Go work and earn money honestly, miserable human being!

So, if somebody manipulates $1000 of your investment (regardless of what it is, be it yak hides or camel droppings) is OK.

But a million dollars is not OK and greed??

 

[PEnnn]

Whether the cult likes it or not, they will only figure out Musk after Musk has completed his purchase of Twitter, if he ever does. And then it will be the equivalent of Truth Social banning people talking about January 6th. https://variety.com/2022/digital/ne...n-6-hearings-according-to-reports-1235290726/

Musk and his minions just fired a few employees........for daring to speak publicly about him!!

https://www.reuters.com/technology/...involved-letter-rebuking-musk-nyt-2022-06-17/

And this is the guy who is spending 44 billion allegedly in defence of......."free speech" on Twitter!

 

[wiyosaya]

Musk and his minions just fired a few employees........for daring to speak publicly about him!!

https://www.reuters.com/technology/...involved-letter-rebuking-musk-nyt-2022-06-17/

And this is the guy who is spending 44 billion allegedly in defence of......."free speech" on Twitter!

Yes, I saw that. Musk is for freedom of speech in the same way that Trump is for freedom of speech. Anything can be said about them as long as it is approved by them.

 

[Ohnooze]

While reading these comments I thought for sure I accidently had clicked on MSNBC and Joy Reid had been posting under multiple user names.

And once again Trump gets brought into to a comment section that has nothing to do with him.