Elon Musk cleared of defamation lawsuit over "Pedo Guy" tweet

Tesla co-founder Elon Musk was cleared of a defamation lawsuit by a jury in city of Los Angeles in relation to a tweet in which he called a British cave explorer "pedo guy". According to reports, panel presiding over case carefully considered details for less than an hour before giving ir judgement in favour of Musk, clearing him of all charges in a case against British explorer Vern Unsworth.

Musk's legal representative, Alex Spiro, told Jury that case was basically an argument between two people and that Unsworth was trying to bag profits from defamation case. He furr added that it was just an insult and that Unsworth highlighted that insult and put it in front of everyone. Spiro also said that it was plaintiff who had picked up a fight with Musk and in response to that Tesla's co-founder had posted a tweet that he regretted.

"Billionaire bully"

Vern Unsworth's lawyer Lin Wood told jury in closing statement of case that $190 million in dams that his client was seeking would have been a rude awakening for Musk and would have stopped billionaire from causing chaos in life of any or person. Wood called Musk a bully and said that his client was a common man whose life had been disrupted by much-publicized incident.

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incident

Elon Musk's "pedo guy" comment against Unsworth came after an interview in which Britisher refused to take up Musk's offer of a mini-submarine to rescue a young soccer team that was stuck in a cave in Thailand in year 2018. In his response, Unsworth called Musk's offer a PR stunt and said that Tesla CEO should stick submarine where it hurts.

After incident garnered a lot of attention, Musk said that his comment was a direct reaction to what Unsworth had said and added that term "pedo guy" was used in his home town in South Africa.

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Case against Elon Musk

Before Musk was cleared of all charges, a United States federal judge stated that Elon Musk will face a defamation case after he referred to a British diver as 'pedo guy'. A Los Angeles judge, Stephen Wilson denied Musk's request on vember 20 to throw out case and cleared way for trial to begin on December 3.

Musk had sought to dismiss suit earlier by claiming that his comment was an insult, t an allegation. However, claims made by diver also include an email sent by Tesla CEO to an international news outlet urging m to 'stop defending child rapists'.

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(With inputs from ncies)