Bloomberg News
@Bloomberg-News·2.8M subscribers·40.1K videos
Elon Musk Arrives in Court for Defamation Suit Over 'Pedo' Comments
Posted
December 4, 2019
Views
4,486
Likes
29
Comments
20
Engagement
December 4, 2019
4,486
29
20
1.09%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
1:12Now PlayingHelping rescue a dozen boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand should have been one of a British diver's proudest moments. Instead he found himself branded a pedophile on Twitter by billionaire Elon Musk, his lawyers said Tuesday.
Vernon Unsworth "did the only thing he could do," attorney Taylor Wilson said during opening statements in a defamation trial. He sued Musk in federal court in Los Angeles after the Tesla CEO called him a "pedo guy" in a tweet, seeking unspecified damages.
Musk's attorney said Unsworth started the spat — belittling Musk's efforts to help with the rescue by building a mini-submarine to transport the boys.
The diver's lawyers also said Musk hired private investigators to dig up evidence Unsworth was a child molester, which they never found.
The lawsuit is not the first time Musk's tweets have landed him in hot water.
Musk and Tesla reached a $40 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission last year over allegations he misled investors with a tweet declaring he had secured financing to buy out the electric car maker. He agreed in the settlement to have future tweets about the company screened.
He went back to court on accusations he violated that agreement by tweeting a misleading figure about how many cars Tesla would manufacture this year.
The SEC sought to hold him in contempt of court, which led to a new agreement imposing tighter controls on Musk's tweets about the company.
The cave drama played out for more than two weeks in summer 2018.
Musk and engineers from his SpaceX rocket company custom-built a mini-submarine, which was heavily publicized but never used.
Unsworth, a diver and caving expert whose advice was considered crucial in the rescue operation, said the sub would never have fit in the cave.
Musk responded two days later with his series of tweets. Musk claims he wasn't making a factual statement and no one reading his tweet would take it seriously and interpret it as defamatory.
Despite removing the tweets, he later suggested in emails to the news website BuzzFeed that Unsworth was a "child rapist" and had moved to northern Thailand to take "a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time." He provided no evidence.
Unsworth is seeking unspecified damages for pain, suffering and emotional distress. The defense has resisted efforts to turn over financial records to show Musk's wealth but has stipulated his net worth exceeds $20 billion.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
QUICKTAKE ON SOCIAL:
Follow QuickTake on Twitter: twitter.com/quicktake
Like QuickTake on Facebook: facebook.com/quicktake
Follow QuickTake on Instagram: instagram.com/quicktake
Subscribe to our newsletter
Email us at quicktakenews@gmail.com
QuickTake by Bloomberg is a global news network delivering up-to-the-minute analysis on the biggest news, trends and ideas for a new generation of leaders.
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
