New York - Elon Musk was sued for $258 billion by a Dogecoin investor, on Thursday, accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency.

Plaintiff Keith Johnson, in a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, accused Musk of racketeering for flaunting Dogecoin and driving up its price, only to then let the price tumble.

The complaint also quotes in comments from Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and others questioning the value of cryptocurrency.

Johnson is seeking $86 billion in damages, representing the decline in Dogecoin's market value since May 2021, and wants it tripled.

He also wants to block Musk and his companies from promoting Dogecoin and a judge to declare that trading Dogecoin is gambling under federal and New York law.

The complaint said Dogecoin's selloff began around the time Musk hosted the NBC show "Saturday Night Live and, playing a fictitious financial expert on a "Weekend Update" segment, called Dogecoin "a hustle."

Tesla in February 2021 said it had bought $1.5 billion of bitcoin and for a short time accepted it as payment for vehicles.

Dogecoin traded at about 5.8 cents on Thursday, down from its May 2021 peak of about 74 cents.
-Reuters