Elon Musk Defamation Suit Reveals He Overruled Staff Requests To Apologize After British Cave Diver Tweet

Elon Musk overruled advice from his inner circle at Tesla and SpaceX that he offer a "genuine" apology and take a Twitter break after using the social media platform to attack a critic last year, according to court filings in the defamation lawsuit against him that cited correspondence with Tesla's top staff. He later admitted to falling for a "con man" that supplied some of the false charges.

Lawyers for Vernon Unsworth, the British diver suing Musk for calling him "pedo guy" on Twitter in July 2018 and a "child rapist" in an email to a reporter in August 2018, released depositions from Musk and Tesla staff this week that show the tech billionaire was intent on setting his own strategy for dealing with the matter. After Musk's initial Twitter attack on Unsworth, which sparked a share drop and public backlash, Sam Teller, chief of staff for Musk's many enterprises, suggested "an apology email to his company and employees." Teller cited feedback from trusted team members including SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, then-CFO Deepak Ahuja and Tesla board member Antonio Gracias.

"Just need an honest acknowledgment of the recent past combined with a genuine apology and inspiring look to the future. Everyone will love and respect you more for openly admitting the mistake and showing how much you care about your employees and the company missions," Teller said,according to a filing. That action, "combined with a break from Twitter, sets you back on the right path internally and externally."

Musk wasn't persuaded, filings show.

"After sleeping on this, I'm not happy about the suggested approach," he told Teller. "It would have been particularly foolish and craven of me to do it last night, right after a share drop, as my apology would simply have been dismissed as a disingenuous and cowardly attempt to restore the stock price."

The case underscores Musk's headstrong style when it comes to social media. The Unsworth flap unfolded around the same time that Musk also incurred the wrath of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for inaccurately tweeting that he'd secured funding to take Tesla private in August 2018. That resulted in a settlement with the regulator that forced him to give up the chairman role at Tesla and required him and the company to pay a combined $40 million in fines. Any tweets Musk sends that contain material information to Tesla's operations are also to be screened before posting, but that remains a touchy matter.

The origin of the defamation case now in federal court in Los Angeles began when Tesla's CEO grew infuriated by comments from Unsworth, who was assisting in the rescue of a youth soccer team trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand, about Musk's plan to send a mini-submarine to help free the boys. Unsworth told CNN that it was a "PR stunt" that the device "had absolutely no chance of working."

Musk responded with a series of tweets on July 15, 2018, criticizing Unsworth and claimed he'd been removed from the rescue team. One ended by saying "Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it." He doubled down on his comments in August 2018 in emails to a BuzzFeed reporter calling Unsworth a "child rapist" and suggesting he'd had sexual relations with a 12-year-old girl in Thailand.

In his deposition, Musk admitted that those allegations against Unsworth, which were provided to him by self-styled private investigator James Howard, were false.

"I did conclude that, because we said 'Okay, you've got to produce-if you keep saying these things, you've got to produce some kind of firm evidence.' And he was unable to produce firm evidence. And then he went radio silent on us," Musk said in his August 22, 2019, deposition.

Among other things, Howard led Musk to believe Unsworth first met his companion in Thailand when she was as young as 12, despite lacking any proof.

"In fact, Unsworth met his significant other, Tik, in a coffee shop in London in 2011, when she was 32 years old," Unsworth's attorneys said in an October 7 filing.

Asked by G. Taylor Wilson, an attorney for Unsworth, if Howard "was probably a con man that took your money," Musk replied, "That is correct. That is my impression at this point."

He admitted to paying Howard at least $52,000 for traveling to Thailand to look into Unsworth's background.

Filed in September 2018, Unsworth's suit seeks $75,000 in compensatory damages as well as unspecified punitive damages. Lawyers for Musk, who have sought to have the case dismissed, are seeking summary judgment in the matter by federal district judge Stephen V. Wilson. Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk, in an emailed statement called Unsworth's case "a money-grabin which Unsworth has hired an agent and pursued profit, publicity and self-promotion at every turn."