How Elon Musk is trying to explain away his 'pedo guy' insult in court

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is desperately trying to explain his bizarre "pedo guy" tweets in court.

Musk is being sued for defamation after in 2018 publicly attacking Vernon Unsworth, a diver who helped rescue soccer players trapped in a Thailand cave, by calling him a "pedo guy" on Twitter and later a "child rapist" among other repeated insults. Musk had lashed out after Unsworth dismissed his plan to rescue the players using a mini submarine as a "stunt."

Musk's lawyers have previously argued his insults were simply opinions and not accusations, and Musk made that case in a new court filing Monday. In it, the Tesla CEO says he simply meant to convey his personal "opinion" that Unsworth "appeared to be a weird guy" and that when he called him a "pedo guy," he didn't mean to suggest that he "had engaged in acts of pedophilia." Musk claims, after all, that "pedo guy" was just a "common insult used in South Africa when I was growing up" and meant to "insult a person's appearance and demeanor."

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Despite this, Musk then describes how he learned through a private investigator "disturbing information" about Unsworth, including that he allegedly began a relationship with his wife when she was "around twelve years old." It was after hearing this that Musk would accuse Unsworth of being a "child rapist" in an email to BuzzFeed News he says he thought was off the record. In other words, Musk seems to be saying, the insult wasn't serious, until it was.

Musk's defamation trial is set for October.