The Vernon Unsworth case is one of several legal actions faced by Tesla and its mercurial CEO in the last few years. A trial is slated to begin Dec. 3.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is headed to court over a defamation lawsuit brought against him by British rescue diver Vernon Unsworth.Unsworth sued Musk in 2018 for libel and slander after Musk referred to the diver as a 'pedo guy' and a 'child rapist.'
SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk gestures during a conversation at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, June 13, 2019.U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles denied Musk's request to throw out the case, according to court documents made public on Tuesday. Wilson ordered the jury trial to begin Dec. 3rd.
Attorneys for rescue diver Vernon Unsworth didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk's attorney, Alex Spiro, said in a statement to CNBC: "We look forward to the trial." Musk and his lawyers argued the case should be tossed because Musk's statements were insults rather than allegations, so they didn't constitute defamation. In his motion for summary judgment, Musk also asserted that Unsworth should be considered a public figure due to his involvement in the cave rescue of a trapped Thai soccer team – a claim Wilson denied in Tuesday's ruling.
Since the judge ruled Unsworth is a private figure, Unsworth will have a lower burden of proof in his defamation claims. Unsworth has to prove only that Musk was negligent for failing to check that statements made in his tweets were true, instead of proving Musk acted with actual malice, or publishing statements he knew to be false.in 2018 after the pair were locked in a heated back-and-forth for several weeks.
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