Tesla CEO Elon Musk Faces Trial for Calling Thai Rescue Diver a ‘Pedo’

Think Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has enough on his plate? Musk, the 47-year-old billionaire entrepreneur and engineer is also founder and CEO of SpaceX, Neuralink a neurotechnology company, the Boring Company which focuses on tunnel-construction, and several other ground breaking startups. According to Forbes, he has a net worth of $22.3 billion and was listed as the 40th-richest person in the world, as of April 2019. Musk is a signatory of The Giving Pledge, in which he has promised to contribute the majority of his wealth to charitable causes. In addition he has contributed his expertise to provide solar-power energy systems, as well as clean water filtration systems to areas to areas devastated by disaster.

Last summer Musk took time out to go on a rescue mission — an underwater rescue of youth soccer players trapped in a cave in Thailand. He brought along a mini-submarine , built specifically for the rescue missions, hoping to shuttle the kids to safety. There he met a British diver who was also part of the rescue mission. The diver, Vernon Unsworth, lashed out against Musk in an interview with CNN. He dismissed Musk’s attempts to help as a “PR stunt” and derided his submarine. The 63-year-old said that Musk’s submarine had “absolutely no chance of working” and that he could “stick his submarine where it hurts.”

Musk took to Twitter to defend himself, calling Unsworth a “pedo” in a July 15 post. For this he was slapped with a defamation lawsuit, in large part because he had nearly 24 million Twitter followers at the time. Unsworth sued him seeking more than $75,000 in damages from Musk. The suit also seeks a court order prohibiting Musk from making any further disparaging comments. Musk attempted to merely dismiss the lawsuit contending that his insult was protected from legal action by the first amendment right to free speech. However, on Friday May 10th, a federal court judge in Los Angeles rejected his plea to dismiss the case. Musk will need to appear on trial in the case, which has been set for October 22nd.

Back in July, Musk had offered a public apology “My words were spoken in anger after Mr. Unsworth said several untruths & suggested I engage in a sexual act with the mini-sub, which had been built as an act of kindness & according to specifications from the dive team leader,” Musk had tweeted days after the exchange.