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British caver says considering legal action after Elon Musk ‘pedo’ tweet
BANGKOK, July 16, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A British caver who helped rescue 12
boys from a Thai cave said Monday he may take legal action against Elon Musk
after the entrepreneur called him a “pedo”.
Tesla CEO Musk launched the extraordinary tirade against Vernon Unsworth
without providing any justification or explanation, after the cave expert
slammed his offer of a miniature submarine to extract the footballers from
the Tham Luang cave as a “PR stunt”.
The “Wild Boar” team were rescued last week by an international team of
divers through a narrow network of twisting, flooded tunnels.
Unsworth, who provided mapping knowledge of the cave to rescuers, said
Musk’s prototype would have had “absolutely no chance of working”.
Musk responded Sunday in a bizarre series of tweets referring to Unsworth
without using his name as “pedo guy”.
“Pedo” is short for paedophile.
He then doubled down on the claim, tweeting from his official account to
more than 22 million followers: “Bet ya a signed dollar it’s true”.
Musk later deleted the tweets and did not immediately respond to a request
for comment through Tesla.
Unsworth told AFP on Monday he had not reviewed the tweets in full and had
only heard about them.
Asked if he would take legal action against Musk over the allegation,
Unsworth said: “If it’s what I think it is yes.”
The caver told AFP he would make a decision when he flies back to the UK
this week, but said the episode with Musk “ain’t finished”.
“He’s just a PR stunt merchant — that’s all he is,” Unsworth added.
Unsworth, who lives part of the year in Thailand, took part in the
gargantuan 18-day effort to retrieve the 12 boys and their coach, a mission
that ended on July 10 when the last five members were extracted.
The boys got stuck in the cave after wandering in on June 23 after football
practice only to find themselves trapped by rising floodwaters.
They were found nine days later on a muddy embankment several kilometres
(miles) inside.
The unprecedented operation to haul them out involved sedating the
footballers and swimming and carrying them through tight, waterlogged
passages.
The boys are all in good health and expected to be released from the
hospital Thursday.
Musk’s tweets prompted condemnation from those who took part in the mission
to save the boys.
Claus Rasmussen, a Danish national and instructor at Blue Label diving in
Phuket, called the allegations “inappropriate” and praised Unsworth’s role in
the rescue.
“He was the guy who effectively mapped most of that cave,” he told AFP.
“He was one of the driving forces in getting everything done and clarifying
for us divers what was going on.”
Musk had earlier provoked condemnation after tweeting that the Thai rescue
chief, who had declined the submarine prototype offer, was not really in
charge of the operation.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1229 hrs