Elon Musk beat back a defamation claim from a British cave expert who sued the billionaire CEO over a tweet in which Musk labeled Vernon Unsworth a \u201cpedo guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
A federal jury in Los Angeles Friday took about an hour to return a verdict that said Musk\u2019s insult fell short of defamation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were pretty much unanimous from the word \u2018go,\u201d\u2019 said Carl Shusterman, a 70-year-old immigration lawyer who served on a jury for the first time.<\/p>\n
Shusterman said the verdict was straight-forward because it wasn\u2019t clear if the tweet was actually about Unsworth, since Musk didn\u2019t name him. The judge told the jurors that was one of the elements required to establish defamation, Shusterman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy faith in humanity has been restored,\u201d Musk said after the verdict.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s another win for Musk, 48, who\u2019s managed to get out of legal trouble relatively unscathed. Musk agreed to step down from his role of chairman of Tesla Inc. for three years in 2018 to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit over a tweet the regulator said misled investors. But he\u2019s run Tesla and SpaceX as usual.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the last formal distraction from when Elon Musk went off the Twitter rails in 2018,\u201d said Gene Munster of Loup Ventures. \u201cPutting that to rest — regardless of what the jury decided –is a step forward for Musk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unsworth had sought $190 million in damages for the harm he claimed to have suffered from the tweet, and to punish Musk. Musk said he fired off the tweet in anger after Unsworth insulted him and his team in a television interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cI respect the jury\u2019s decision,\u201d Unsworth said after the verdict. \u201cI\u2019ll take it on the chin and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n
His lawyers were less gracious, repeatedly referring to Musk as a \u201cbillionaire bully.\u201d<\/p>\n
L. Lin Wood, one of Unsworth\u2019s lawyer, said he wasn\u2019t happy with the outcome. \u201cHe deserved a different kind of justice,\u201d Wood said. Wood said he hasn\u2019t decided whether to appeal the verdict.<\/p>\n
The four-day civil trial featured Wood, and Alex Spiro – two heavyweights squaring off in the courtroom. Wood had represented Richard Jewell, the security guard falsely accused of being connected to the Centennial Olympic Park bombing during the 1996 Summer Olympics.<\/p>\n
Spiro, a former prosecutor based in New York, lists rapper Jay-Z, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and several NBA players, including ex-Knick Charles Oakley as former clients.<\/p>\n
Spiro issued a five-word statement after the verdict.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe jury got it right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It was the first time that Musk has been called as a witness at a trial, despite numerous legal spats, including one with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over a tweet the regulator said misled investors.<\/p>\n
Musk told the jury the tweet aimed at Unsworth shouldn\u2019t have been taken literally and was sent because the caver insulted his effort to help rescue members of a Thai soccer team from a flooded cave in 2018.<\/p>\n
The rescue effort had riveted the attention of the world\u2019s media. Musk and engineers at his companies prepared a mini submarine, built with rocket parts, to help. The kids, aged 11 to 16, were saved without the use of the sub.<\/p>\n
The high-profile effort from the celebrity CEO drew derision from Unsworth, who knew the caves well and helped in the rescue effort. He told CNN that Musk could \u201cstick his submarine where it hurts\u201d and that it had no chance of working.<\/p>\n
Musk responded on Twitter, calling Unsworth a \u201cpedo guy\u201d and adding: \u201cNever saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves.\u201d Sus — meaning suspect, or suspicious.<\/p>\n
Later, he asked why Unsworth hadn\u2019t sued him. Musk also hired a private investigator to dig into Unsworth\u2019s personal life and leak information to British tabloids.<\/p>\n
Unsworth, a financial consultant who divides his time between England and Thailand, described to the jury the effect the tweet had on him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you combine \u2018sus\u2019 and \u2018pedo guy,\u2019 I took it as I was being branded a pedophile,\u201d Unsworth said on Wednesday. \u201cI feel vulnerable and sometimes, when I\u2019m in the U.K., I feel isolated.\u201d
\n490 Stories<\/p>\n
It was a tweet heard around the world. An expert witness for Unsworth told the jury that 490 English-language stories were published mentioning the \u201cpedo guy\u201d tweet — not including stories about the litigation.<\/p>\n
Musk, who had apologized to Unsworth on Twitter, did so again in court. But Unsworth told the jury he had nothing to apologize for to Musk.<\/p>\n
Musk told the jury he found Unsworth\u2019s comments in the CNN interview wrong and insulting — especially to his team which he said worked hard to help in the rescue effort — and so he fired back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he was just some random, creepy guy that the media interviewed,\u201d Musk said of Unsworth.<\/p>\n
Neither man impressed Shusterman, the juror. He said there was no need for Unsworth to put down Musk\u2019s mini submarine, and Musk\u2019s response was equally immature.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt it was like two junior high school students fighting,\u201d Shusterman said.<\/p>\n