63-year-old Vernon Unsworth, the man whom Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly slandered with remarks on Twitter and then later in two emails later published by BuzzFeed, plans to sue the controversial billionaire over those remarks, according to Unsworth’s lawyer.
The Guardian received an email from the lawyer stating that “Elon Musk’s campaign of publishing vile and false accusations against Mr Unsworth is inexcusable. Musk hopes to be sued and he deserves to be sued. He will be.”
The story started when a group of kids from a football team were trapped in a cave in Thailand. At the time, Musk offered up the idea of using a mini-submarine to rescue the boys. Unsworth reportedly said that the idea had “absolutely no chance of working,” after which the tweets against Unsworth were posted by Musk. Musk later apologized and the tweets were removed, but BuzzFeed subsequently published two emails from Musk allegedly backing up his comments in the tweet.
The emails showed that Musk called Unsworth a “single white guy from England who’s been travelling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years” and that he had moved to Thailand “for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.”
The girlfriend, presumably the same girl Musk wrote of, Woranan Ratrawiphukkun, claims that she was at least 32 when she met Unsworth about 7 years ago. In a statement to the Times, she said: “The news about him being married to a 12-year-old child is laughable. As of now, everything will proceed according to the law. Vern is a kind person. He rarely has an argument with anyone, and everybody loves Vern. If he wasn’t a good man, we wouldn’t still be together.”
According to Unsworth’s lawyer, legal proceedings will be initiated against Elon Musk on behalf of his client in Thailand as well as the UK and the US.
