Elon Musk: Calling Cave Rescuer a ‘Pedo Guy’ a ‘Schoolyard Taunt’, Not Claim of Pedophilia
Elon Musk recently defended in federal court calling one of the cave rescuers of the Thai youth soccer team a “pedo guy”, stating that he meant only insult the man’s “creepy” appearance.
The beef started between the two when Musk discussed using a child-sized submarine to transport the trapped Thai kids to safety.
When asked about the novel idea by the media, volunteer cave rescuer Vern Unsworth called the Silicon Valley billionaire’s rescue plan a “PR stunt”.
“He can stick his submarine where it hurts,” Unsworth further noted.
Musk didn’t take kindly to being dissed and went into a Twitter tirade that ultimately ended in him calling the British expat living in Thailand a “pedo guy”.
Musk apologized and deleted the tweet but that didn’t stop Unsworth for filing a lawsuit for defamation.
The larger-than-life techie countered in court recently that he wasn’t claiming that Unsworth was actually a pedophile, but just tossing a “schoolyard” barb based on the man’s appearance.
Musk’s own actions undermine this position though.
After apologizing, Musk paid a private investigator $50,000 to dig up dirt on Unsworth.
The investigator came back with saying that the man was living mostly in Pattaya for over 30 years before moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride, all which Musk parroted later in public.
Musk also called the man a “child rapist” during an interview with a reporter.
Unsworth denied all the claims under oath saying he never even visited Pattaya once since living in Thailand. Multiple journalists also could not verify any of the claims.
Musk’s defense team argues that since Unsworth was a “limited-purpose public figure” during the cave rescue that caught the world’s attention, Unsworth must prove that Musk had “actual malice” when launching his “pedo” and “child rapist” statements.
If this is deemed the case by the court, then essentially it means that Unsworth must show without a doubt that Musk made the statements knowing they were false or recklessly disregarding the possibility that they could be false.
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