Elon Musk on Thailand cave diver: ‘Stop defending child rapists’

Tesla CEO Elon Musk
VCG/Getty Images

• In an e-mail to a BuzzFeed reporter, Tesla CEO Elon
  Musk doubled down on his attacks on Vernon Unsworth, the cave
  diver who played an instrumental role in the Thai cave rescue
  this summer.
• He told the reporter to “stop defending child rapists,”
  and that “I fucking hope” that he gets sued by
  Unsworth. 
• The e-mail was prefaced “off the record.” But because
  BuzzFeed didn’t agree to those terms before the e-mail was
  sent, it’s free to discuss the contents of the
  message. 

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In an
e-mail to a BuzzFeed News reporter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk
doubled down in his attacks on Vernon Unsworth, the cave diver
hailed as a hero in this
summer’s rescue of a youth soccer team trapped in a cave in
Thailand.

“I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find
out what’s actually going on and stop defending child rapists,
you fucking asshole,” Musk wrote in the email, according to
BuzzFeed News. “He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s
been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years,
mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child
bride who was about 12 years old at the time,” the email
continued.

Musk reportedly went further, saying that “I fucking hope”
that Unsworth sues him — something that
Unsworth has threatened to do, per an earlier BuzzFeed
report. In fact, Musk’s e-mails to BuzzFeed were sent last
week, in response to a request for comment on Unsworth’s
preparations to sue. 

Musk did not provide any evidence for these allegations,
according to the BuzzFeed report. Of note is that the e-mail from
Musk to BuzzFeed was prefaced with “off the record” — a condition
that needs to be agreed upon by both parties. Since BuzzFeed did
not agree to keep the e-mail off the record beforehand, the news
organization explained in the story that it did not consider
itself bound by any such confidentiality terms. 

“Elon Musk’s continuing campaign of publishing vile and false
accusations against Mr. Unsworth is inexcusable. Musk hopes to be
sued and he deserves to be sued. He will be,” L. Lin Wood,
Unsworth’s lawyer, tells Business Insider.

This feud began in July, when Unsworth criticized Musk’s
attempts to deploy a custom-built submarine to help with the
rescue of the soccer team,
calling it a publicity stunt. In response, Musk called
Unsworth a “pedo” on Twitter, though he later apologized and
deleted the tweet. More recently, Musk appeared to reopen the
matter, when he
questioned why Unsworth hasn’t sued him yet. 

“You don’t think it’s strange he hasn’t sued me? He was offered
free legal services,” Musk said on Twitter,
in response to criticism from user Drew Olanoff over the “pedo”
tweet. It remains unclear what kind of “free legal services” he
was referring to. 

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Read the full BuzzFeed report here, including screenshots of
Musk’s e-mails.

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