Elon Musk defends 'pedo guy' tweet in defamation trial
Tesla co-founder Elon Musk said Tuesday he did not literally call a British caver a pedophile during their infamous spat on Twitter, telling a Los Angeles federal court that he had simply defended himself from unprovoked insults.
The tech billionaire told the defamation trial jury he had been "upset" when he described British diver Vernon Unsworth -- who helped rescue youth soccer players trapped in a cave in Thailand -- as "pedo guy" in a tweet.
During the July 2018 row, Unsworth had described the 48-year-old entrepreneur's proposal to build a mini-submarine to rescue the boys as a "PR stunt."
"It was an unprovoked attack on a good-natured attempt to rescue the kids," Musk, dressed in a black suit and dark tie, told the courtroom Tuesday. "I was upset."
"It was wrong and insulting and so I insulted him back," he said.
Musk was questioned by Unsworth's attorney Lin Wood about comments made by the caver, who had said the custom-built device would never have fit in the cave and suggested that Musk could "stick his submarine where it hurts."
"It's idiomatic, just as I was not literally meaning he was a pedophile," replied Musk.
Asked why he failed to specifically say that Unsworth was not a pedophile in his apology, Musk said it seemed obvious to him that this was his intent.
"For me, that did not require any clarification ... (which) would have been worse," he said.
"I apologized and I say again 'I apologize Mr. Unsworth'," he added, as the British caver looked on across the courtroom, visibly uncomfortable under the media spotlight.
Musk's testimony was to continue on Wednesday.
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