Vern Unsworth may sue Musk for pedo tweet

Whilst the world rejoiced at the miraculous rescue in Thailand of the young football team and their coach, one British expat caver who played a more than prominent part in the international effort is now thinking of sueing a billionaire for his potentially dangerous online insult.

Expatriate and expert diver Vern Unsworth lives for much of the year in Chiang Rai, and had explored the cave many times over the past six years as well as mapping it. In an interview with CNN, he told a reporter he’d been scheduled to go to the site on June 24 but was called up in the early hours of that morning. He successfully identified the most likely place where the boys and their coach were trapped, and they were found just 200 metres away. Unsworth soon realised outside help in the form of world-class, highly experienced cave divers was desperately needed, suggesting the governor called his friends Robert Harper and Stanton, who arrived three days later.

During the interview, Unsworth explained the structure of the cave to CNN, saying a sump some 200 meters in was the first barricade as water was up to the roof. Subsequent pumping out reduced the water level, allowing the divers to progress further into the system. A major problem was the lack of coordination between the various groups involved, down to language difficulties and an understandable lack of experience in the courageous Thai team.

During the final day of the rescue itself, Elon Musk arrived with his mini-submarine, finding the team still not sure they could get all the boys out before the weather turned against them. On the mountain, Thai teams had managed to block off several streams which fed into the cave system, thus lowering the water levels. Even so, according to Unsworth, Musk’s tech offering was too inflexible to negotiate the twist and turns of the cave and, by Tuesday, the water had begun to rise.

When Unsworth’s comment about Musk’s prototype reached the billionaire, he launched a bizarre series of tweets attacking the caver without using his name. One of Musk’s tweets referred to Unsworth as a ‘pedo’ – slang for paedophile – one of the worst and most dangerous insults used in Thailand towards foreigners. Rather than apologising, the billionaire doubled down, adding ‘betya a signed dollar it’s true’. Some 22 million followers saw the tweets before Musk removed them, and he hasn’t responded to press enquiries about his insult. Unsworth said he hadn’t see the tweets but had heard all about them, adding if it’s what he’d though it was he’d certainly take legal action but would decide when he returned to the UK later this week The episode with Musk, he added, ‘aint finished’.