Elon Musk offered investigator $10,000 bonus for dirt on diver he had labelled a ‘pedo guy’
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk offered a $10,000 (£8,154) bonus for dirt on a British diver he labelled a “pedo guy” after a spat about whether a submarine he offered to rescue a Thai football team stuck in a cave was a publicity stunt.
According to a document filed by diver Vern Unsworth’s legal team in his libel case against Musk, a private investigator was paid $52,000 to investigate Unsworth with a $10,000 bonus for “successful confirmation of nefarious behaviour”.
The investigator, James Howard-Higgins, a convicted fraudster, was also tasked with leaking information to the UK and Australian press to plant “an unflattering story” about Unsworth and young girls “without any disclosure that it was coming from Elon Musk or one of his investigators”, the document said.
Read more: Elon Musk claims ‘pedo guy’ insult was not accusation
In the claim, it is revealed that Musk later said Howard-Higgins, who was not vetted for reliability, was “just taking us for a ride”.
In his defence, filed last month, Musk said that the term “pedo guy” did not carry connotations of paedophilia in his native South Africa.
“It is synonymous with ‘creepy old man’ and is used to insult a person’s appearance and demeanour, not accuse a person of acts of paedophilia,” Musk’s defence said.
The spat between the pair started in July 2018 after Unsworth said that Musk’s offer of a mini-submarine to rescue a children’s football team stuck in a Thai cave complex was a “publicity stunt”.
Unsworth also said that Musk could “stick his submarine where it hurts”.
Musk responded by calling him a “pedo guy” on Twitter.
Read more: Elon Musk in deep waters after reigniting feud with British diver in sweary outburst
Musk apologised and deleted his tweets but later publicly speculated on why Unsworth had not taken legal action against him if the insults were untrue.
In an email to a Buzzfeed reporter in September, Musk doubled down on his attack.
“I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what’s actually going on and stop defending child rapists, you f****** asshole,” he wrote in the email.
In the email, Musk said that Unsworth was “an old, single white guy from England who’s been travelling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.”
He added: “I f****** hope he sues me.”
Unsworth’s legal claim said that the diver met his partner, Tik, in a coffee shop in London in 2011 when she was 32 years old.
Read more: Elon Musk launches fresh attack on British diver over ‘pedo’ comment
“Thereafter, he made his first visit to Thailand to visit her and explore the cave system near her residence, where the children were subsequently lost,” the claim said.
In an email to an outside PR contact, revealed by Unsworth’s legal claim, Musk wrote: “I didn’t expect Buzzfeed to publish an off the record email. My intent was to have them investigate and come to their own conclusions, not publish my email directly. Still, i’m a f*****g idiot,” he wrote.
Unsworth was awarded an MBE in the New Year’s honours 2019 for his part in the rescue of the Wild Boars football team from the flooded cave system.
Tesla was contacted for comment.