Elon Musk testifies at defamation trial he responded to 'unprovoked attack'

LOS ANGELES — Elon Musk has owned up to insulting a British spelunker in a rash tweet, but wouldn’t concede on the witness stand that he called the man a pedophile.

The Tesla CEO returns to the witness stand Wednesday after spending several hours at his defamation trial trying to dance around the meaning of the “pedo guy” tweet he aimed at Vernon Unsworth, a cave diver who helped rescue a dozen boys and their soccer coach from a flooded Thailand cave last year.

Musk said the insult meant only “creepy old man” and did not literally mean he was calling Unsworth a pedophile.

The spat began when Unsworth ridiculed Musk’s effort in the rescue by having engineers at his companies, including Space X and The Boring Co., develop a mini-submarine that could transport the boys to safety. Despite working around the clock to build the sub in short order, Musk arrived in Thailand late in the rescue effort and the craft was never used.

Unsworth, a cave expert who was considered crucial to the rescue, said the submarine would never have fit through the convoluted underwater passageways in the cave. He called it nothing more than a “PR stunt” and said Musk could stick the sub “where it hurts.” Musk watched the CNN clip of Unsworth several times before lashing out in a series of tweets July 15, 2018.

“It was wrong and insulting, so I insulted him back,” the billionaire told a Los Angeles federal court jury. “It was an unprovoked attack on what was a good-natured attempt to help the kids.”

“Just as I hadn’t literally meant he was a pedophile, he didn’t want to shove a sub up my ass,” Musk said, provoking snickers in the courtroom.At the time, Musk said he didn’t know Unsworth had helped with the rescue. He said his tweet wasn’t intended as an actual allegation.

Unsworth is seeking unspecified damages for pain, suffering and emotional distress from the tech entrepreneur whose net worth exceeds $20 billion.

Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, said during opening statements that Unsworth deserves nothing for what he called “joking, taunting tweets in a fight between men.”

Unsworth’s lawyers argue that Musk’s tweet overshadowed what should have been one of the diver’s proudest moments and left him no choice but to sue. But Spiro said the shame and mortification Unsworth said he experienced is undercut by the attention he received after the rescue, including honors from the Thai king and British prime minister and offers from agents and film crews.

Musk, who was dressed in a charcoal gray suit and white shirt, remained composed on the witness stand during questioning from Unsworth’s lawyer, who called him as his first witness.

His answers were at times humorous and sometimes seemed like those of an executive under court order to be careful about what he says.

Musk is required to have his tweets about Tesla screened as part of court settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations he posted misleading information about the company that caused wild stock swings.

His tweet about Unsworth caused Tesla’s stock to drop about 3% the following day, though it recovered a day later.

After company officials tried to get Musk to apologize for the tweet, he responded in an email that he didn’t want look “foolish and craven” by doing so right after the stock dropped.