Jury finds in favour of Elon Musk in 'pedo guy' Twitter case
Apparently if you own a spaceship, you can accuse people of child abuse
by Chris MerrimanLEGAL ALIEN Elon Musk has won his defamation case against the British man he called a "pedo guy".
The action brought by Vernon Unsworth was looking for £145m in damages from Musk after he used the term to describe the caving expert during the rescue of the Thai soccer team from caves in 2018.
Musk had never denied using the phrase (it was on Twitter after all), but claimed that when he said "pedo guy", he didn't mean "pedo" as in "pedo" - he actually meant "pedo" which is (apparently) a common form of mild insult in Musk's homeland of South Africa (but really it's a small moon in the orbit of Mercury) as opposed to "pedo" which is short for "paedophile".
So are we all clear that "pedo" didn't mean "pedo" but "pedo"? Good. Right. On we go.
Mr Unsworth's lawyers said that the ruling was "not a good verdict for society" while Musk said his "faith in humanity is restored".
The jury sat for four days, but took less than an hour to unanimously clear the Tesla and Space X founder of any wrongdoing, with the foreman arguing that there was not enough evidence to progress the case.
Mr Unsworth originally incurred the wrath of Musk after ridiculing his idea to send a custom-made submarine into the caves to rescue the soccer team and their coach. He dismissed the offer as a "PR stunt", pointing out that large parts of the cave complex weren't underwater, meaning the submarine would be of limited use.
Musk took offence and posted a series of insulting tweets, including the "pedo guy" one.
During the trial, Mr Unsworth, who was expecting to get an apology from Musk, was asked by his legal team to take back the mean things he'd said about the submarine. Because of course, he was.
Despite Musk seeming to further goad the diver on Twitter, making comments like "Bet ya a signed dollar it's true", the jury decided that there was nothing to suggest that the comments would be taken seriously and besides, Elon Musk owns Tesla.
The Judge's brand new CyberTruck will be delivered as soon as manufacturing is complete. Probably. μ
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