Elon Musk argues his 'pedo guy' insult wasn't literal because 'if you add guy to something, it's less serious'

Tesla CEO Elon Musk argued in his defamation trial Wednesday that when he called a British diver "pedo guy," this was clearly a flippant remark and that using the word "guy" made it "less significant than pedo."

Musk is being sued for defamation by Vernon Unsworth, a diver who helped rescue soccer players trapped in a Thailand cave and who Musk publicly called a "pedo guy" on Twitter last year. The Tesla CEO has been arguing that when he called Unsworth a "pedo guy," he was not legitimately accusing him of being a pedophile, claiming this was simply a common insult used in South Africa, where he grew up, to call someone creepy.

Musk continued to make that argument on the second day of his trial Wednesday, arguing that his use of the word "guy" further shows that it was not a literal accusation.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"Pedo guy is more flippant than pedo, especially in the context I used in the tweet," Musk said Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reports. "It's obviously an insult, no one interpreted it as meaning he was actually a pedophile."

Musk did, however, also call Unsworth a "child rapist" in an email exchange with BuzzFeed News, during which he also invited Unsworth to sue him. "I f---ing hope he sues me," Musk wrote to BuzzFeed. That quote that was read in court on Tuesday, CNN reports, to which Musk responded, "Yeah, I guess be careful what you wish for."