Tesla boss Elon Musk was acquitted on Friday, December 7, in his defamation suit held in Los Angeles for a Tweet in which, in the summer of 2018, he called "Pedo guy" ("Dude pedo") a British caver who claimed $ 190 million in compensation.
It took less than an hour of deliberations for the jury to make its decision in this high-profile case, which pits Musk against Vernon Unsworth, a Briton who accused the billionaire, in an interview with CNN television. have wanted to be "A publicity stunt" by sending a submarine of its design to rescue children prisoners of a cave in Thailand.
He said in particular that the submersible was unsuitable and that the billionaire could "Put it where it hurts". The boss of Tesla and SpaceX had retorted on Twitter, implying that Mr. Unsworth was a pedophile. Elon Musk had apologized a few days after the messages he had erased.
The prosecution and defense lawyers played very different scores in their respective pleadings on Friday. Vernon Unsworth's lawyer, Lin Wood, found that the compensation claimed was the equivalent of a "Strong tap on the fingers" for the billionaire and that this would prevent him from "Launch a nuclear bomb again in the life of another individual". In ninety minutes of speaking in the Los Angeles federal court, Mr. Wood painted a portrait of a "Billionaire tyrant" in opposition to his client, a man of modest origin whose life was turned upside down by the spotlight on this high-profile feud.
"Simply an insult"
Elon Musk's lawyer, Alex Spiro, instead told the jurors that Mr. Unsworth was trying to take advantage of the media coverage of the case, which amounted to "A fight between two people". "It was just an insult", said Me Spiro.
Mr. Musk's lawyers had been arguing since the beginning of the trial that the 48-year-old's avenging tweens were only a "Insult" uttered in an argument between the two men, but it was not strictly speaking defamation.
During the trial that opened on Tuesday, the speleologist reaffirmed that the entrepreneur had indeed wanted to do "A publicity stunt". On Wednesday, Mr. Unsworth told himself "Humiliated and dirty" for life after "Been publicly designated as a pedophile" by Elon Musk.
