
Elon Musk’s ‘Pedo Guy’ Trial Shows the Depth, Danger of His Own Mythos - eplanit
https://observer.com/2019/12/elon-musk-pedo-guy-trial-mythos-depth-danger/
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keenmaster
I agree that no one should be so quick to call others nasty untrue names, but
the story is a bit more complicated than it may appear at first glance. I
summarized a Verge article in another thread as such:

\- Thai soccer team gets stranded in a cave

\- British expat and diving expert helps with the rescue effort

\- Musk also tries to help, dedicating a small team from SpaceX to design a
submarine to rescue the kids, with preliminary approval of his efforts by the
Thai government

\- The kids happen to be rescued before Musk's submarine could be put to use

\- The British expat got on CNN, implied that Musk was just in it for the
publicity, and said that Musk can "stick his sub where it hurts."

\- Musk had a Google alert on his name and was quickly notified of this. He
was frustrated because he saw it as an attack on his reputation. He redirected
time and resources to a good cause for free but someone was implying he did it
for glory.

\- Musk Googled the man's location and saw that he lived in an area of
Thailand with a lot of trafficking victims, which in his view in that
emotionally charged moment gave him ammunition to tweet a response. Allegedly,
he didn't know that it was the same person that helped with the rescue.

\- He got on Twitter shortly thereafter, defended his submarine, and called
the British expat a "pedo guy" (Musk claimed that this was slang-like and he
didn't actually mean that the expat was an actual pedo guy)

\- The expat sent Musk a letter asking him to retract his comments publicly.
Musk saw it as a financial shakedown and refused. Later, in court, the expat
was offended with Musk's reading of the letter as a shakedown.

\- Someone employed by Musk's family office hired an investigator who claimed
that he can discover whether there is some truth to the "pedo guy" claim. He
also said that he already had some intel. Any confirmatory evidence could be
used as defense in a potential defamation suit, though it would be retroactive
in this case. The investigator turned out to be a con man and turned up
nothing of substance.

\- The expat filed a defamation suit which has gone to court. A judge and jury
(of around 40 people, no less) are assessing the facts of the case, and Musk
had to testify in court for several hours.

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finnthehuman
>but the story is a bit more complicated than it may appear

How so? That list you wrote isn't complicated. It's a pretty simple timeline.
5 of the 11 items are basically "Musk does something petty, rash and/or
impulsive."

~~~
keenmaster
Perhaps nuanced is a better word. It's easy to read the various headlines and
conclude: "Musk called a hero a pedo because the kids were saved before Musk's
crazy vanity project could do anything."

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davesque
It's always interesting to watch high profile people "stick to their guns" in
situations like this when even the most basic amount of common sense would
tell them to do otherwise. Such a shame too. Musk could be doing so much good
by focusing his time and money elsewhere. Instead, he wants to spend all this
energy terrorizing "little people" like Unsworth.

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universenz
The background on the "private investigator" that was organised last minute is
also an interesting read.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/report-
musks-500...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/report-
musks-50000-pedo-guy-investigator-is-a-convicted-felon/)

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rdlecler1
This is very strange. I’m viewing the article on Chrome iOS and after a few
seconds it keeps redirecting me to a spam site. I don’t ever recall seeing
such aggressive browser redirects on iPhone and certainly never from a
mainstream site. Am I the only one experiencing this?

~~~
rodinia
I've had that happen before when visiting some music news sites in iOS safari.
Seemed like some sort of malevolent cookie, as it started when I would go to a
particular site and persisted until I cleared browser data.

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thorwasdfasdf
sounds like a case of too much ego and too much pride.

~~~
skyyler
It's kinda sad that he's acting so childish.

Some guy ruined my PR stunt by rescuing some kids without building a
submarine. Guess I better call that guy a pedo.

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Akinato
It seems funny that he's trying to argue about the word "pedo" when he
double/tripled down on his accusations by hiring investigators.

Elon Musk is a brilliant, broken and fragile man. While I hold a great respect
his professional accomplishments, I have little love for the man behind them.
His success in the technical world is harshly contrasted with his failings in
the humane one.

He might as well start making an arc reactor and a metal suit.

~~~
lonelappde
Who is worthy of love?

~~~
Akinato
Those who love, wholly.

~~~
posix_compliant
That's a tall order.

