(Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk was sued for defamation by an English caver involved in the rescue of a Thai boys soccer team trapped in a flooded cave. Musk called the rescuer a pedophile.
Vernon Unsworth drew Musk's wrath after he told CNN that a mini-submarine that Musk had built and brought to the cave to help rescue the children in July was “a PR stunt” and “had absolutely no chance of working.” Unsworth's comment prompted a series of tweets by Musk, including on July 15 when he said, “Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.”
Musk apologized for the “pedo” comment in two subsequent tweets, but the war of words erupted again last month, according to Unsworth's lawsuit, when Musk implied in an email to a journalist that Unsworth was a child rapist and engaged in child sex trafficking.
Representatives of Tesla Inc., one of Musk's companies, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Musk on the allegations. The complaint was filed Monday in federal court in Los Angeles.
The case is Unsworth v. Musk, 18-CV-08048, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).
To contact the reporter on this story: Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg
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