Cody McGrath 
Dogecoin influencer and billionaire Elon Musk, as well as his firms SpaceX and Tesla Inc, are being sued for $258 billion in damages for “engaging in a crypto pyramid scheme” involving Dogecoin (DOGE).
The damages requested are roughly three times Dogecoin’s current market cap of $7.5 billion and more than 34 times its ATH market cap of $88.68 billion in mid-2021.
The class-action lawsuit, filed in New York District Court on Thursday by an attorney at Evan Spencer Law, claims that Musk “used his eminence as World’s Richest Man to control and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme for profit, exposure, and pleasure.”
Plaintiff Keith Johnson, a US citizen, argues in the petition that Musk and his enterprises were “unjustly benefited” by $86 billion as a consequence of wire fraud, gambling enterprise, false advertising, misleading acts, and other illegal activities.
Johnson says that he and other class members lost about $86 billion between May 2021 and June 2022 and is seeking that amount in monetary damages, as well as an additional $172 billion in damages and expenses.
“Defendant Musk is the self-appointed ‘Dogefather,’ ‘former CEO of Dogecoin,’ partner, developer, spokesperson, publicist, salesman, marketer, and promoter of Dogecoin, who assembled the ‘Doge Army’ including his corporations and various billionaires, influencers, and celebrities to increase the price, market cap and trading volume of Dogecoin.”
Musk said in January that his electric vehicle firm Telsa will take Dogecoin as payment for its items. In May, he revealed that his space exploration company SpaceX will take Dogecoin payments.
The lawsuit also seeks an order deeming the coin trading to be gambling under New York and federal law and argues that Musk and his firms have broken state and federal gambling regulations.
“Because Plaintiff and the class were not informed that trading the coin was merely a gambling venture, Plaintiff and the class demand the recovery of all wagers lost trading Dogecoin.”
It also aims to prohibit Musk and his companies, as well as any other unlicensed professionals, from further advertising, marketing, or promotion of Dogecoin.
Community Reaction
On Thursday, Dogecoin founder Shibetoshi Nakamoto, whose Tweet was referenced as supporting evidence in the complaint, branded the lawsuit “dumb as fuck” on Twitter, but agreed that crypto trading isn’t much different from gambling.
The CEO and co-founder of Irreverent Labs, which develops blockchain games, Rahul Sood, termed it a “dumb class-action lawsuit.”
“Amazing that in the US someone could launch such a stupid class-action lawsuit. These guys all knew what they were getting into. Ridiculous.”
Ron Coleman, a business attorney and partner at Dhillon Law Group with 196,000 Twitter followers, responded to the news by saying, “Anyone can say anything in a lawsuit.”