Elon askin’ for it
Rekindles Thai cave ‘pedo guy’ feud
Elon Musk’s bizarre Twitter feud with a rescue diver in Thailand may soon land him in court.
British frogman Vern Unsworth — who was branded a “pedo guy” by Musk last month after he accused the tech tycoon of staging a “p.r. stunt” around the dramatic rescue of a group of boys from a cave in Thailand — is preparing to sue, according to his lawyer.
“You published through three different tweets to your twenty-two million followers that Mr. Unsworth engages in the sexual exploitation of Thai children,” Unsworth lawyer L. Lin Wood wrote in an Aug. 6 letter first published on Wednesday by BuzzFeed News.
“You did so without any basis. According to a subsequent Twitter post, you did so out of anger,” Wood wrote, adding that he was “prepar- ing a civil complaint for libel.”
News of the legal threat came less than 24 hours after Musk — whose effort to aid the rescue with a mini-submarine he’d built had “absolutely no chance of working,” according to Unsworth — rekindled the feud out of the blue.
“You don’t think it’s strange he hasn’t sued me?” the Tesla CEO tweeted to a user who had questioned his “dedication to facts and truth.”
“He was offered free legal services,” Musk added.
That’s despite the fact that Musk had already apologized after last month’s blowup, in which Unsworth declared that Musk “can stick his submarine where it hurts.”
“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 tweeted July 18.
It’s the latest Twitter-fueled fiasco for Musk, who last month sent Tesla shares on a rollercoaster ride after declaring that he was thinking about taking the electric-car maker public — a tweet he said he sent while stopped at a red light on his way to the airport.
Musk announced Friday he was dropping the idea amid a regulatory probe into his tweets.