‘Teflon man’ Musk gets away with ‘pedo guy’ tweet
● Even before the verdict came in on Friday, South Africa-born Elon Musk had earned the sobriquet Teflon Man on Twitter.
Once a US jury decided that he hadn’t defamed a British man by calling him a “pedo guy” in a post on the social media platform, his reputation as a controversy-stirring billionaire who escapes relatively unscathed from the firestorms he creates for himself seemed to be sealed.
Dan Ives, an analyst who covers Tesla, one of Musk’s companies, repeated it: “Right now he’s the Teflon man.” But, Ives added, “it’s a cautionary tale and hopefully situations like this don’t repeat.”
There have been more than a few of those situations already for the former Pretoria Boys’ High pupil, who is CEO of Tesla and chair and CEO of SpaceX. His boards have tolerated them, his fans love him all the more for his antics and investors don’t seem to mind. Tesla shares have rallied more than 60% in the past six months.
In July 2018, as the world was riveted by efforts to save a Thai youth soccer team stuck in a flooded cave, Musk’s engineers tried to help by making a mini submarine out of rocket parts. Vernon Unsworth, an expert caver instrumental in the rescue, told CNN that the mini-sub was little more than a publicity stunt. Musk fired off the “pedo guy” tweet — and hired a private investigator to dig into Unsworth’s personal life and leak information to British tabloids.
During the course of the trial, Musk testified that his use of the term “pedo guy” — slang for paedophile — was never meant to be taken literally, and on the witness stand he apologised to Unsworth for the comment.
In his deposition, Musk — who is estimated to be worth more than $20bn (R292bn) — traced that definition to his childhood in SA, where he claimed that pedo guy is a common insult. But in court on Tuesday he broadened the claim. Pedo guy means creepy not just in SA but across the Englishspeaking world.
“This is quite common on the internet,” Musk said. “If you googled it now, that’s what it would show.”
Unsworth’s lawyer, L Lin Wood, said during his summation that Musk’s tweets were akin to a “nuclear bomb” that would overshadow Unsworth’s relationships and job prospects for years to come. He urged jurors to teach Musk a lesson by awarding Unsworth $190m.
But the jury was apparently swayed by the arguments put forth by Musk’s attorney,
This verdict puts everyone’s reputation at risk
Alex Spiro, who said the tweets in question amounted to an offhand insult in the midst of an argument, which no one could be expected to take seriously.
After the unanimous decision, Wood said that his client had gone “toe to toe with a billionaire bully”.
“This verdict puts everyone’s reputation at risk,” he said.
Other lawyers specialising in defamation agreed that the verdict reflects how the freewheeling nature of social media has altered understandings of what distinguishes libel punishable in court from casual rhetoric and hyperbole that is protected as free speech. Reuters
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