Tesla founder Elon Musk will head to court on Tuesday (3 December) as he faces a defamation suit for comments he made on Twitter.<\/p>\n
The suit is being brought against him by Vernon Unsworth, a British man who helped with the rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach from a flooding Thai cave in July 2018.<\/p>\n
Unsworth is suing Musk for accusing him of being a paedophile and is seeking punitive and compensatory damages.<\/p>\n
As part of his defence, Musk is expected to rely on the fact that ‘pedo guy’ was a common insult used in his home country of South Africa and is not the same as calling a person a paedophile.<\/p>\n
“By 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 paedophilia,\u201d Musk said in a September court filing<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n “Pedo 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 demeanour, not accuse a person of paedophilia.”<\/p>\n In that same filing, Musk defended his decision to double down on the claim, sharing how he hired a private investigator to probe Unsworth and blamed the PI for allegedly giving him bad information.<\/p>\n Musk and Unsworth are both expected to testify, their respective lawyers told CNN Business<\/a>. Musk’s lawyer will look to classify the use of “pedo guy” as an insult or opinion, not a statement of fact.<\/p>\n
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