Rescuer may sue for ‘paedo’ slur
A British man who helped rescue 12 Thai boys from a cave may take legal steps against Elon Musk after the entrepreneur called him a “paedo”.
Tesla CEO Musk launched the extraordinary tirade against Vernon Unsworth without providing any justification or explanation, after the cave expert slammed his offer of a miniature submarine to extract the boys from the Tham Luang cave as a PR stunt.
The “Wild Boar” team were rescued last week by an international team of divers through a narrow network of twisting, flooded tunnels.
Unsworth, who provided mapping knowledge of the cave to rescuers, said Musk’s prototype would have had absolutely no chance of working.
Musk responded on Sunday in a bizarre series of tweets referring to Unsworth, without using his name, as “pedo guy”.
Pedo, or paedo, is slang for paedophile.
The entrepreneur tweeted from his official account to more than 22 million followers: “Bet ya a signed dollar it’s true.” Musk later deleted the tweets.
Unsworth said he had not reviewed the tweets in full and had only heard about them.
But asked if he would take legal action against Musk over the allegation, Unsworth said: “If it’s what I think it is, yes.”
The caver said he would make a decision when he flies back to the UK this week, but added that the episode with Musk “ain’t finished”. –