Tesla CEO Elon Musk has faced court over accusations that he defamed a rescue diver when he called him "pedo guy." The plaintiff can win the case if he proves that Musk's tweeting was "negligent."
Image: Imago Images/ZumaPress/D. Swanson
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The defamation trial against Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk began in California on Tuesday, with Musk arriving in Los Angeles and the defense selecting the members of the jury.
The billionaire was seen entering the city's federal courthouse on Tuesday. By the end of the approximately five-day trial, the CEO will be expected to explain what he meant when he called Vernon Unsworth, a British diver who helped rescue a dozen young soccer players trapped in a cave in Thailand last year, "pedo guy" in a post on Twitter in 2018.
At the time, Musk and his rocket company SpaceX built and heavily publicized a tiny submarine to help with the rescue, though it was never used.
In July 2018, Unsworth called the move a "PR stunt" and told CNN that the submarine would never have worked. He said Musk could "stick his submarine where it hurts."
Musk lashed out in a series of tweets two days later, including one where he called Unsworth "pedo guy." The billionaire currently has 29.8 million Twitter followers.
Why it was so difficult to extricate Thai cave boys
After a daring rescue mission, Thai divers and international volunteers rescued 12 young soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave. The group was stranded in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave complex for 18 days.
Image: picture-alliance/Newscom
Happy ending after harrowing ordeal
After deliberating over how best to rescue the boys and their coach - considering even whether to teach them how to dive, or wait for the monsoon waters to recede months later - rescue workers finally settled on pumping out as much water as possible, sedating those trapped and strapping them to a diver who shepherded them to safety.
Image: Reuters/Thai Navy Seals
Found alive after nine days
Rescue divers initially found the 12 young soccer players and their coach alive on July 3 after they went missing in a Thai cave 10 days earlier. Fighting against time, rain and low oxygen levels, rescuers managed to free the first four boys successfully on July 8. The rescuers faced a complicated and dangerous diving mission to free the rest of the team and their coach.
Image: picture-alliance/Newscom
Glimpse of joy
Families of the teenage soccer players expressed their joy over the discovery of the boys nine days after they went missing. Outside the cave, the mother of one of the boys said she was "glad" for a glimpse of her son. "He's thinner," she said, as she ran her finger over the image of her son on a television screen.
Image: Thai Navy Seal via AP
Massive rescue efforts
Thai rescuers were assisted by an international team comprising experts from China, Australia, the USA and Britain. A video from the Thai Navy SEAL Facebook page showed the group several kilometers inside the 10-kilometer (6-mile) cave network on a small wedge of dry ground. The boys moved 400 meters further in as the ledge had become covered by water.
Trapped by flooding
The boys, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach entered the cave to celebrate one of the player's birthday. They became trapped in the cave, a local tourist spot where similar incidents have taken place in the past, when sudden rainfall flooded its entry on June 23. It was later reported that some of the boys could not swim, further complicating the rescue.
Image: picture-alliance/Xinhua
A difficult mission
The rescue mission proved difficult for divers whose efforts were continually hampered by rising water that filled sections of the cave, often forcing them to stop. Getting trained divers into the cave was easier than getting untrained kids out.
Image: Reuters/S. Zeya Tun
Boys' safety paramount
The entire nation was glued to the media coverage of the rescue mission, and Thai authorities insisted they will not compromise on the safety of the trapped group. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha (above, at right) thanked international experts who helped find the boys.
Image: picture alliance/Xinhua News Agency
First boys rescued
The first four boys were rescued by a team of 13 foreign diving experts and Thai Navy SEALS, who helped them navigate the flooded cave tunnels. The head of the rescue operation said they were the healthiest in the group. The rest of the boys and their coach would be rescued from the cave over the next two days.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/L. Suwanrumpha
Safe and sound
Doctors who treated the boys after their rescue reported that while they had lost weight, the otherwise appeared to be in good health. The dozens of divers and hundreds of other rescue workers have been celebrated around the world as heroes, especially 38-year-old former Thai Navy SEAL Saman Kunan, who died after bringing the group supplies of air on July 5.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/Thailand Government Spokesman Bureau
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Burden of proof
In September 2018, the diver sued Musk for defamation.
Musk has apologized and said the term is a common insult in South Africa where he grew up and is not a reference to pedophilia.
But Unsworth's lawyers say Musk confirmed the latter understanding of the term in a follow-up tweet, and that he hired private investigators to find evidence linking their client to child molestation, which they were unable to do.
Unsworth denies the allegations that he is a pedophile. In order to win the defamation case, he will have to show that Musk's tweeting was negligent. This requires proving that the tweets are not true, that the CEO did not take reasonable efforts to confirm that they were true, and that they can reasonably be understood to refer to pedophilia.
Musk's lawyers will argue that the tweets were an opinion, not a statement of fact, and that no one thought Unsworth was a pedophile because of them.
