Elon Musk—Musk called Thai cave rescue diver a 'pedo guy' on Twitter and allegedly hired PI to investigate him
In July 2018, Musk called British cave diver Vernon Unsworth 'sus' and a 'pedo guy' on Twitter after Unsworth criticized Musk's involvement in the Thai cave rescue. Musk also allegedly emailed a BuzzFeed reporter suggesting Unsworth was a 'child rapist' who had taken a 12-year-old 'child bride,' and reportedly had an employee hire a private investigator to dig into Unsworth's background. Musk later apologized and deleted the tweets. A jury found Musk not liable for defamation in December 2019.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Press Freedom | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.286 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.57)
Evidence (1 signal)
NPR reported jury found no defamation in Musk's 'pedo guy' tweet about cave diver
NPR reported on the December 2019 verdict where a Los Angeles jury found Musk had not defamed British cave diver Vernon Unsworth by calling him 'pedo guy' on Twitter. The lawsuit stemmed from Musk's July 2018 tweets after Unsworth criticized Musk's involvement in the Thai cave rescue. Musk also allegedly emailed a BuzzFeed reporter calling Unsworth a 'child rapist.'