Elon Musk to deal with trial over ‘pedo’ claim versus rescue scuba diver

Elon Musk is headed to court in October over remarks he made about a British scuba diver who assisted save a kids soccer group caught in a Thai cavern.

In July, the Tesla CEO called Vernon Unsworth, who helped in the rescue, a “pedo man” on Twitter after the scuba diver slammed Musk’s proposed submarine rescue strategy. Unsworth taken legal action against Musk in September for character assassination.

In a court order submitted Friday, United States District Judge Stephen Wilson rejected Musk’s effort to dismiss the character assassination case and set a path date for Oct. 22. The Verge previously reported on the court order.

“The significance of the ruling is clear: publication of accusations on Twitter does not provide a safe harbor for defamatory statements that are false and convey that they are factual,” stated L. Lin Wood, Unsworth’s lawyer, in an emailed declaration Friday.

Musk’s legal representatives had actually argued that declarations made on “unmoderated internet forums” like Twitter are thought about viewpoint since “internet speech is unique,” according to the court order. 

Wilson declined those arguments. The judge indicated an e-mail Musk sent out to BuzzFeed, in which he informed a press reporter to “stop defending child rapists” and made a dubious claim that Unsworth relocated to Thailand to wed a 12-year-old kid bride-to-be, according to the court order.

“There is absolutely nothing about the context in which [Musk ]made the declarations…that would produce doubt regarding whether [Musk’s] declarations indicated assertions of unbiased reality,” Wilson composed. 

The judge likewise indicated the reality that Musk followed up with his preliminary tweet about Unsworth by including “Bet ya a signed dollar it’s true,” showing he thought the accuracy of his declaration.

Tesla didn’t right away react to an ask for remark.

You can check out the court file listed below: