Elon Musk may be done with 2018 , but 2018 ai n’t done with Musk .
On Wednesday , attorney for the Tesla CEOfiled a motionwith a California court to dismiss alawsuitbrought by Vernon Unsworth in September . Unsworth is an Internet Explorer and British ex - pat life in Thailandwho helpeda saving team in the effort to find twelve boys and their coach in a awash cave . Over the summer , Musk made headline as he scrambled to work up a miniskirt - sub that could be used to find the male child . Rescuers take for Musk ’s planimpractical , and after everyone was safe and sound , Unsworth called the submarine lark a “ Puerto Rico stunt . ” This appeared to vex Musk , andhe respondedon Twitter by insinuate that Unsworth is a pedophile and explicitly yell him “ pedo guy . ” Unsworth responded to Musk ’s tweets with a lawsuit seeking $ 75,000 in compensatory damages .
In the new court filing , Musk ’s attorney argue that Musk had tweeted “ in anger , ” laterapologized , and “ over - the - top affront are not statements of fact . ” When you ’re being sued for slander and libel , it might not be the wisest scheme to claim you ’re clean-handed because the accusations you ’ve made are false , but these attorneys are innovator living in the 21st C . The filing goes on to debate that “ courts consider ‘ the total of the circumstances in which it was made . ’ ” And in this case , they said , a reasonable lector would not dare Musk had any special information that would lend his “ inventive attacks ” credibility .
The Musk defense team weaken when you consider how hard he doubled - down in hisnow - deleted tweets . At one point a Twitter user chided Musk for making baseless accusations against someone who ’d deliver children . Musk respond , “ bet ya a signed buck it ’s true . ” While that ’s not a phrase that anyone uses in regular spirit and it ’s genuinely eldritch ; a reasonable referee could arguably presume that Musk might truly think it and that , as a powerful billionaire , he might have some insider knowledge .
Musk ’s lawyers name the Buzzfeed clause in their motion to dissolve the suit . They use the reporter ’s description of “ Musk ’s bombast as ‘ evidenceless literary criticism ’ ” to back up their controversy that people did n’t take the accusation seriously .
We do n’t bonk how the court will consider Team Musk ’s disceptation , but we must say , their verbal description of Twitter , as “ a societal networking website infamous for invective and hyperbole , ” is incontrovertibly truthful .
[ U.S. District CourtviaBBC ]
Elon Musk
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