British cave diver considering legal action after 'pedo' attack by Elon Musk

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/16/british-diver-in-thai-cave-rescue-stunned-after-attack-by-elon-musk

by duked • 8 years ago

110 81 8 years ago

I supported Musk after he released his e-mail correspondence showing the dive team had requested he continue work with his submarine. I also think Musk genuinely tried to help solve a problem; maybe not with the greatest requirements gathering (though Musk is adamant the submarine would be able to reach the cave and is planning to demonstrate this). Some of the attacks on Musk were terrible and unnecessary.

However, he then sends this baseless tweet. And doubles down on it. It is juvenile, petty and disgraceful behavior. It would seem that everyone is deeply flawed in some way.

erokar2• 8 years ago

It would seem that everyone is deeply flawed in some way.

It would seem that Musk is deeply flawed in some way.

TeMPOraL6• 8 years ago

And so is everyone else. It's so obvious that we usually don't even about it, except when people need an occasional reminder that their favourite celebrities are human too.

happertiger2• 8 years ago

Yea when someone in the public eye forgets the lessons they teach in kindergarten it’s always a little disappointing. I imagine he is mad at the guy, but I wish he would show a little less hubris.

Nobody is perfect. Hope he learns to apologize and be the bigger person because the benefits of that approach for those that are publicly adored cannot be overstated.

m_mueller• 8 years ago

You know what, maybe the kindergarden analogy is quite apt. EM seems to have a childlike wonder, drive and openness, which is very powerful when combined with a high quality STEM education and intellect - maybe 'staying a child' comes with good and bad attitudes at the same time?

chewz2• 8 years ago

I think this story demonstrates the difference between quiet professionalism of people like Unsworth and narcistic void of Musk.

Brotkrumen3• 8 years ago

Quiet professionalism would've been "no comment about Musk. I'm happy the children are safe".

flexie3• 8 years ago

It's unworthy and completely wrong reaction, but it is understandable given the diver's prior attacks on him. Not that it's an excuse.

darklajid• 8 years ago

Different people are held to different standards.

Even if insulted (and how insulting were these previous comments, really?) a random diver speaks for himself, a public figure heading and representing multiple big corporations should be able to keep his mouth shut instead.

KozmoNau74• 8 years ago

Which prior attacks would that be?

He simply told Musk to go away and take his toys with him, before he hurt someone. Was he direct and a little bit rude? Sure, but the overall situation was quite tense, so there wasn't a lot of time for fine detail and detailed explanations.

blub2• 8 years ago

How can it be unworthy and wrong... yet understandable?

It's understandable to be pissed off and call the other guy an asshole. This is totally fucked up and not at all understandable.

agumonkey5• 8 years ago

I'm now waiting on bezos answer, he must compete.

TeMPOraL6• 8 years ago

Jeff Who?

Twitter jabs are funny until the audience - or participants themselves - start to treat them too seriously. That's when the problem starts. I'm sad to see Elon falling into this trap.

erokar2• 8 years ago

Goes to show this was all about ego for Musk. Instead of being happy that all the children were rescued, his ego got bruised since they didn't use his submarine -- and he attacks the real heroes. Text book narcissistic behavior.

happertiger2• 8 years ago

That’s really the thought that went through my head exactly.

Double_a_92• 8 years ago

I assume he must have been heavily intoxicated at that point.

Not trying to defend him or anything... I just can't imagine how any public person could go that low. He must have known how hard that would backlash.

postmeta• 8 years ago

Well the British diver guy, Vernon Unsworth, did start with the innuendo attacks first, telling Musk "he can stick it where it hurts", referring to the sub.

That's what Musk was responding to I think.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-15/thai-cave-rescue-diver...

icebraining• 8 years ago

"Pedo guy" is not an innuendo. Plus Unsworth's words may have been crass, but they weren't an accusation of anything. There's really no comparison.

TheSpiceIsLife4• 8 years ago

Yeah but...

To jump to calling someone a pedophile is reprehensible.

And some of Musk's calibre should ... know better.

And frankly, I have zero tolerance for this sort of thing. Sling around accusations of illegal actions against children isn't something we should take lightly.

As far as I'm concerned Musk doesn't deserve anything, other than destitution.

xvf22• 8 years ago

Calling it a publicity stunt and getting called a pedo in return is way out of line. Musk looks like he's lashing out and it makes you wonder if he does this regularly.

As with his questionable donations[1], this risks shifting people's opinions.

[1] https://thinkprogress.org/elon-musk-house-gop-contributions-...

curiousgal2• 8 years ago

I found it quite dishonest by The Guardian to not mention that.

KozmoNau74• 8 years ago

Those two things are on completely different scales. The diver had personally seen the cave and knew the obstacles, and was simply telling a jumped-up billionaire playboy to please go away with his silly counterproductive and possibly dangerous toys, in a manner fitting a tense and dramatic situation.

Musk then goes flying off the handle with a completely baseless and and frankly insane accusation, because his ego got hurt.

ddalex2• 8 years ago

That's like ten orders of magnitude lighter than calling somebody a pedo...

masklinn2• 8 years ago

Calling somebody a pedophile is not even remotely in the same galaxy as hinting that somebody should take their stupid idea and shove it up their ass.

smcl2• 8 years ago

Also the fanboyism behind Musk is a bit unsettling. I made the mistake of viewing the replies to various tweets surrounding this controversy and there's a worrything amount of enthusiastic fans ready to jump in and defend him by sniping at anyone talking negatively about him. Why anyone would feel the need to "white knight" a billionaire is beyond me.

Brotkrumen3• 8 years ago

Also the hate for Musk is a bit unsettling. I made the mistake of viewing the replies to various tweets surrounding this controversy and there's a worrything amount of unreasonable haters ready to jump in and attack him by sniping at anyone talking positively about him. Why anyone would feel the need to attack a helpful narcissist is beyond me.

sergiosgc3• 8 years ago

Why anyone would feel the need to "white knight" a billionaire is beyond me.

Being a billionaire shouldn't be a negative trait. Yet, it is, because so many of the 1% show lack of empathy and disregard for the common man and a single focus on generating wealth for wealth's sake. Musk does not seem to be in it for the cash, and thus looks different.

Musk is, very transparently, an engineer at heart. He tinkers and creates and takes absolute joy in the creation process and in the result. It just so happens he's also a billionaire. Combine the hacker mentality with lots of cash and you get crazy creations like SpaceX, Tesla or The Boring Company.

Musk's tweets about the sub, if viewed from the perspective of a hacker bragging about a hack, are perfectly natural. As is throwing a car up into orbit.

That the Internet at large jumps to reading these fun, creative actions as "marketing" or "self-promotion" or "billionaire arrogance" is a sign that we, as a collective, lost our innocence long ago, and are unable to take pleasure in creating stuff.

It is a shame.

agumonkey5• 8 years ago

Reminds me I need a few book about narcissistic traits.

ofrzeta2• 8 years ago

Quite obviously. Also "the Tesla CEO appears to be committed to proving his design would have worked. He wrote: 'We will make [a video] of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo.'" I mean, come on, that's not that great a "design" that you (or your engineers for that matter) made up but a stopgap solution. Nothing wrong with that, thanks for helping. But just let go now.

curiousgal2• 8 years ago

One problem I have with the reception of this story is that most people think he attacked one of the British divers that were the first to find the boys, whereas in fact, the diver in question is a different person. The article describes him as "instrumental" but that encompasses a lot of the people involved, including the farmers whose lands got destroyed by the pumped water. I am not trying to down play this guy's contribution by any means but he is not who most people think he is.

That being said, both men engaged in a juvenile uncivilized exchange, initiated by the British diver, so there's no need to get courts involved.

Oletros• 8 years ago

Are you putting at the same level the comment from the diver about putting the sub where it hurts with Musk calling him pedophile?

KozmoNau74• 8 years ago

Telling a billionaire playboy to go away and take his silly toys with him, in a direct and clear manner befitting the drama of the situation is not a "juvenile uncivilized exchange".

danso2• 8 years ago

There have been feature articles about Unsworth describing his role, but I can’t find them since the top 50 google results are about Musk calling him a pedo. IIRC, his role involved have expert knowledge of the caves, more or less pinpointing the location of the soccer team, and convincing the Thai government to call on the British divers who eventually found the boys. Seems pretty substantial to me: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/10/family-british-d...

throw2016• 8 years ago

This is so unbecoming and tacky. He has betrayed an unbelievable level of egotism and immaturity and embarrassed himself permanently.

The problem seems to be he is convinced he is smarter than everyone else and being dismissed obviously did not sit well with him. The most important thing is all the children were rescued safely and obviously the rescuers have distinguished themselves.

This is a lesson for all those convinced about their own smartness not to assume everyone else is stupid, and the importance of humility and maturity.

TorKlingberg• 8 years ago

I love what Elon Musk is doing with SpaceX and Tesla, but he really needs to constrain his ego on Twitter. He's a big time celebrity now, and people are going to talk about him. Some of them will be negative, and some will be uncharitable. Getting into fights all the time isn't going to help him archive great things. (and his fans should stop cheering him on)

pavlov• 8 years ago

Why does Musk insist on pursuing a playground vendetta over this? The submarine was a quick hack and turns out it didn't quite work. That's perfectly ok -- that's what quick hacks are like. It would be forgotten in a week as he moves on to the next shiny engineering challenge to keep his audience thrilled.

Instead, he doubles down on every real or perceived slight against him. Donald Trump does the same. It must be an effective PR tactic because these two American luminaries do it, but it's frustrating to watch how this stuff consumes so much media oxygen from real issues.

makomk• 8 years ago

The short answer is, this article completely omits the part of the diver's comments that actually made the headlines originally. He also said it was just a PR stunt, and everyone latched onto this as proof that Elon Musk was an evil person for even trying and that the dive team who'd actually rescued the kids confirmed it. It was only after Elon's subsequent morally-bankrupt smear made for a better avenue of attack that the media started downplaying the diver's comments as just some minor technical criticism rather than iron-clad proof Musk was a monster taking advantage of kids' peril.

Td5g• 8 years ago

Everybody makes mistakes, he rectified it by deleting his tweet. /s

rohan1024• 8 years ago

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

MrLeftHand2• 8 years ago

I don't know. How would you feel if someone would call you a pedophile on social media, but deleted the comment after a couple of hours?

Especially by a person who has a huge following and every word he writes can have a massive impact on peoples perception. As a lot of people pointed out, the term pedophile can be very damaging on one's life. Now put these two things together...

With great power, comes great responsibility. When you are a leader you have to be careful what you say and do. Granted, we are all human, but deleting a tweet doesn't even come close to an apology.

loco5niner• 8 years ago

FYI - /s denotes sarcasm.

Slartie• 8 years ago

Can totally understand that guy, and I hope he follows through on legal action against Musk.

Having a verbal fight is one thing, even throwing around "dirty" language is in some way acceptable among grown-ups, as long as both sides know the limits. One of those limits is that you never, never, never, NEVER accuse your opponent of socially stigmatizing behavior, especially not if you have no basis for doing so (and even if you have evidence for it, it's still kind of bad style to bring that up). Being a pedophile is probably the most stigmatizing accusation possible in todays' society - just the accusation alone, no evidence whatsoever necessary, can destroy the life of perfectly honest people if it "catches on" somehow, and stuff like that quickly catches on and develops a life of its own. Especially when publicized by some guy with a cult-like following of 22 million people on Twitter.

If Musk was a kid, he should have gotten seriously disciplined by his parents for this, in hopes that he'd learn where the limits are. For adults, it's up to the legal system to do this job. To be honest, I have little hope for Musk to learn any new tricks with regard to acceptable limits for his childish temper tantrums, but I nevertheless hope he doesn't get out of this entirely unscathed - this one was just way too far over the line.

dnel• 8 years ago

I doubt any amount of damages he'd get would even slightly sting Musk, the worst Musk will get is the bad press about this but that's already happening. At least the guy might get some legal cleasing from the stain Musk put on him and a bit of cash in compensation. I hope he follows through because throwing about accusations like that is not on and kids, and some grown-ups, who look up to a man like Musk need to see that he has boundaries of acceptable conduct and he's stepped over them this time.

mruniverse• 8 years ago

Hopefully people will idolize Musk a little less.

ddalex2• 8 years ago

I think Elon Musk lacks the empathy to understand the damage he's doing to those around him - family, employees, strangers on the internet - when he's throwing away words like that; I genuinely think he's actually lacking these social skills.

It doesnt' help that Silicon Valley basically made this behavior glamorous - Steve Jobs is the primary exponent of a crass person getting a cult-like following. While I think it's a useful trait while in pursuit of achieving unreasonable things - like ground-breaking design innovation, sending cars in space, expanding a niche car market to mainstream - all these guys, Musk, Jobs, and so on are basically sociopaths, and we shouldn't be afraid to call them as such.

masklinn2• 8 years ago

I think Elon Musk lacks the empathy to understand the damage he's doing to those around him - family, employees, strangers on the internet - when he's throwing away words like that; I genuinely think he's actually lacking these social skills.

It's not just social skills that he lacks, the interview with his first wife[0] where she notes that he regarded her grieving for their first kid (SIDS death at 10 weeks) as "emotionally manipulative"[1] is something else entirely.

[0] https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-start...

[1] https://i.imgur.com/YDYeRW0.png

ryanwaggoner• 8 years ago

Steve Jobs is the primary exponent of a crass person getting a cult-like following

Uh, maybe in SV, but not in, say, politics ;)

Traubenfuchs• 8 years ago

Elon Musk seems to be a very undiplomatic, passive aggressive person. His behavior makes it look like he is not used to repercussions for his socially unacceptable behavior. His public social media self harming / suicide attempts are bizarre.

Elon really needs a (social media) handler.

GenericsMotors• 8 years ago

Musk gets told his PR stunt is unwelcome and should bugger off, and his reaction is to call one of the people who risked their lives to save those kids a paedophile?

What a narcissistic prick. Confirms his stupid sub was nothing more than ego-stroking.

oliwarner• 8 years ago

I worry about Elon.

It's not just that he can go from zero to full-on character assassination in three messages, not just that he doesn't care who he does that in front of, but also that he very evidently values a dollar bill with his signature as more than $1.

It's openly-expressed megalomania.

People have joked about him being one failure away from turning full super-villain, but if he does stuff like this again, he really risks the stock markets destroying everything. Tesla lives and breaths on outside funding at the moment. It can be snuffed out.

glenra• 8 years ago

he very evidently values a dollar bill with his signature as more than $1.

Wait, is it not objectively true that the autograph of a famous person tends to add value to the things they sign?

Ebay has a category for Musk-autographed stuff. People post stuff in that category, and sometimes it sells. Are you saying stuff advertised as having been signed by him would be worth more without the signature? :-)

f137• 8 years ago

Musk is a narcissistic asshole. That's all. I hope more people will see it now.

British cave diver considering legal action after 'pedo' attack by Elon Musk

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