Elon Musk revealed that he hired a private investigator for $50,000 to back up his assertion in a 2018 tweet that a British caver was a \u201cpedo guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk is now asking a judge to forgo a trial and a throw out a lawsuit by the caver, Vernon Unsworth, accusing the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of defamation.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy referring to Mr Unsworth as \u2018pedo guy,\u2019 I did not intend to convey any facts or imply that Mr Unsworth had engaged in acts of pedophilia,\u201d Musk said in a court filing Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cPedo guy was a common insult used in South Africa when I was growing up. It is synonymous with \u2018creepy old man\u2019 and is used to insult a person\u2019s appearance and demeanor, not accuse a person of pedophilia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk revealed that one of his trusted aides commissioned a private investigator to conduct an investigation of Unsworth on Musk\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n
\u201cMusk\u2019s motion is as offensive to the truth and the sworn testimony developed in this case as was his initial false and heinous accusation of pedophilia,\u201d Unsworth\u2019s lawyer, L. Lin Wood, said in an email.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s legal team asked the judge to dismiss the case before a scheduled Dec. 2 trial, arguing that a BuzzFeed article about his tiff with Unsworth and his tweets don\u2019t meet the legal standard of defamation.<\/p>\n
They asked the judge to treat Unsworth as a \u201cpublic figure\u201d for purposes of the case, arguing that Unsworth must meet a higher-than-ordinary level of proof that Musk either knew his statements were false or that he was reckless in making them.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Unsworth cannot establish a defamation case just because Mr Musk insulted him on Twitter and sent a private email to a reporter,\u201d they wrote in the court filing. \u201cThe Constitution does not allow that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In April, a federal judge in Los Angeles rejected Musk\u2019s request to dismiss Unsworth\u2019s case.<\/p>\n
The spat between the two erupted after Unsworth dismissed the mini-submarine that Musk and employees at SpaceX had built to assist in the rescue of a group of Thai boys who were trapped in a flooded cave last year.<\/p>\n
Unsworth said in a television interview that the mini-submarine, which ultimately wasn\u2019t used in the rescue, was a \u201cPR stunt\u201d and that Musk could \u201cstick his submarine where it hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n