Elon Musk faces trial for calling British hero cave diver a ‘pedo guy’ on Twitter

Billionaire Tesla founder fails in effort to throw out $75,000 defamation lawsuit

Elon Musk will have to go on trial after accusing a British diver who helped rescue the Thai boys trapped in a cave last year of being a paedophile.

The billionaire Tesla boss had tried to have the defamation lawsuit filed by the diver, Vernon Unsworth, dismissed but a federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled the case must proceed in October.

The spat began in July last year when Mr Unsworth, an experienced cave diver who divides his time between Thailand and Britain, dismissed Mr Musk’s own efforts to assist the cave rescue as a “PR stunt” in a TV interview.

The eccentric businessman had personally brought a miniature submarine to Thailand which he hoped could reach the stranded youth football team inside the cave complex. In the end, the submarine was never used.

“He can stick his submarine where it hurts,” Mr Unsworth told CNN. “It just had absolutely no chance of working. He had no conception of what the cave passage was like. It was just a PR stunt.”

Enraged by Mr Unsworth’s criticism, Mr Musk tweeted to his then 22.5 million followers the veteran diver was a “pedo guy”.

Although he quickly apologised for the accusation, the next month he repeated the unfounded allegation in an email to BuzzFeed.

In response to a query from a journalist at the website, Mr Musk said: “I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what’s actually going on and stop defending child rapists, you f****** a******.

“He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s been travelling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.”

It seems it was these claims which convinced the judge Mr Unsworth’s defamation suit had merit and was not simply litigating a hyperbolic insult on Twitter.

Judge Stephen Wilson ruled Mr Musk “did not call [Mr Unsworth] a ‘pedo guy’ and leave it there. Rather, he made follow-up statements indicating that he believed his statements to be true.”

The diver, who several of those involved in rescuing the Thai boys have said played a pivotal role in their successful extraction from the caves, is seeking more than $75,000 (£58,000) in damages and a court order prohibiting the Tesla CEO from making any more disparaging remarks.

It is not the first time Mr Musk’s freewheeling tweets have caused the billionaire problems.

Last year he was forced by the US stock market regulator to agree to have any tweets which could affect Tesla’s stock price pre-approved by the company’s lawyers.

This settlement was imposed on Mr Musk after he caused Tesla stock to soar when he tweeted he had funding to take the company private.