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Speaking of Elon, did we ever get to the bottom of his pedophile claims? I don't see many people talking about it so i assumed he apologised and gave them a free model 3?



It's Musk, so he refused to apologise, doubled down on the assertions, got threatened with a lawsuit, grumpily withdrew the allegations, saw a slightly unflattering Buzzfeed article, blew his lid, sent the journalist a rant about how all the original allegations were true and Buzzfeed was a pro-pedophile publication for not agreeing with Musk 100% on everything (...not making this up), the journalist gleefully published it (because Musk was way too angry to, eg, get an agreement that the conversation was off the record), and the diver promptly sued him.

There's still zero evidence that any of Musk's claims are true, and I believe a few of them have always been trivially falsifiable, eg, Musk mentioned a child bride, but the diver's partner is 40, which isn't really what I'd consider a "child". And so on.

The court cases are ongoing, and unlikely to move fast. But at this point the best Musk can hope for is a procedural win I think, and that's iffy.


What would be a procedural win in this case?


A procedural win would be if Musk can convince a court that they don't have jurisdiction (eg, the diver should have sued somewhere else), or that there's some other reason to throw the suit out.

I believe his lawyers were recently advancing the argument that the First Amendment lets you lie about people on twitter, so it doesn't matter if all the twitter claims were lies. If that argument works, that would be a procedural win, aka "it doesn't matter if I did it, because X".


He actually did appologize


Trouble is the Buzzfeed email happened after he "apologized" (over twitter). So that actually makes it worse.


The cave diver (Vern Unsworth) is suing Musk for libel... the case is working its way through the courts now: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-diver-vern-unswort...

Musk is trying to get the case dismissed as being just a big joke, after he repeatedly challenged Unsworth to sue him.


The U.K. has some serious anti-libel and slander laws, and it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion given all Elon has said on the record that he has no chance in hell to win. I would guess there will be a settlement at some point, unless Unsworth wants to draw it out... which he might.

Musk really screwed the pooch on that one.


The amusing thing about Musk is, assuming he loses and has to pay a couple millions in a settlement...

...it still won't be the most expensive time he ran his mouth on twitter, said false things, and had to pay a big settlement that year.

(Musk had to pay a $20m fine to the SEC for making fraudulent statements on Twitter. Musk is on record that the fine was "worth it". And I guess if you're billions, maybe a really satisfactory tweet really is worth a few million.)


> The U.K. has some serious anti-libel and slander laws

The US has a law (SPEECH 2010) that means English libel cases can't be enforced in the US unless they meet US law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law


Yeah, but Musk presumably does travel a lot, and again presumably can’t afford to never show up in the U.K. again. Practically speaking if he loses, he’ll have to pay.


Could it be argued the allegations occurred in the UK, as that’s where the guy lives?

That would be fun. Extradite Musk. Classic.


No extradition for civil judgments, so no. In principle, the successful litigant could seize any assets Musk had within reach of the UK to pay the judgment. Not sure how straightforward that would be, as it'd depend on how Musk's finances are structured and how much he travels.


Ah, right. Cheers and thank you.


Better yet, sue him in Thailand where defamation is a criminal offense where conviction comes with jail time.


and where even truth is not an airtight defense in a libel case. Thailand is not a good country in which to run your mouth on social media


That's right. Truth is not a defense at all in defamation cases. If your intent was to embarass or defame then even if what you said was true you can be convicted and do time.

Not sure if the case could be filed in Thailand. But if it was, Musk would be convicted for sure. The rescuers are all heroes in Thailand and what Musk said was very offensive and designed to do nothing other than defame the rescuer. Nothing would come of a conviction as long as Musk never visited Thailand again since nowhere would extradite him.


Libel cases can take _years_. This could be going on for a while.




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