Elon Musk in trouble for calling a cave diver a pedophile

New Delhi : Tesla CEO Elon Musk has landed himself in trouble by calling a cave diver a pedophile on Twitter; a defamation case has been filed against him that will go to trial on October 22nd, according to recent court filings.

Cave diver Vernon Unsworth has sued Elon Musk for allegedly accusing him of being a pedophile.

A court judge refused Musk’s claim that he was not making a real direct accusation. “A reasonable fact-finder could easily conclude that [Elon Musk’s] statements ... implied assertions of objective fact,” wrote district judge Stephen V. Wilson.

Musk and Unsworth had engaged in a war of words last year over the rescue of a soccer team that was trapped in a cave in Thailand.

Unsworth, who helped with the rescue operation, criticized Musk’s dubious plan to save the team with a “kid-sized submarine.” Musk insulted Unsworth by calling him a “pedo guy” on Twitter.

He doubled down on the insult by tweeting “bet ya a signed dollar it’s true,” then elaborated even further in emails to BuzzFeed — flatly asserting that Unsworth had moved to Thailand “for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.”

However, the Musk’s case is stronger here as by law defamation case cannot be applied to opinions or derogatory hyperbole.