On July 15, Tesla CEO Elon Musk came under fire after he fired off a now-deleted tweet calling one of the British divers involved in the Thailand cave rescue, Vernon Unsworth, a "pedo".

The tweet was Musk's response to Unsworth's criticism of his submarine on CNN as a "PR stunt" and that he should "stick his submarine where it hurts".

Who is Vernon Unsworth?

According to CNN, Unsworth is one of the divers who played an instrumental role in the rescue operation by pinpointing the estimated location of the Wild Boars due to his in-depth knowledge of the Tham Luang cave complex. He has been exploring the caves for the past six years.

The Wild Boars were eventually found 200 meters away from his estimated position.

Additionally, Unsworth was also key in linking up the Thai authorities with the rest of the British experts and has experience in cave rescue operations back in the UK. The Thailand operation has been the biggest operation he has been involved in by far.

Unsworth explains why Musk's submarine wouldn't work

Cave rescuer on Musk: “It was a PR stunt. It had no chance of working.” pic.twitter.com/uPgRMQLkRx

— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) July 13, 2018

Elaborating on his criticism of Musk's plan, Unsworth added that "it had absolutely no chance of working" as "he had no conception of what the cave passage was like".

This was because the submarine "wouldn't have gone round corners or round any obstacles" as it "was about 5 foot 6 long, rigid."

When asked further about his presence in the cave, Unsworth shrugged and added Musk "was asked to leave very quickly."

Musk hits back

Prior to his tweet calling Unsworth a paedophile, Musk had sent out two more tweets dismissing Unsworth's presence and undermining Unsworth's contributions to the rescue.

When called out for his paedophile comment, Musk initially doubled down, before deleting the tweet.

Source: Elon Musk Twitter

Musk's tweets and subsequent deletion attracted intense criticism and mockery in the social media sphere, with some users reporting Musk's comments to Twitter.

cc @TwitterSupport You shouldn't be allowed to use twitter to unleash your followers on people like this https://t.co/UWv9LBaccH

— Ellen K. Pao (@ekp) July 15, 2018

https://twitter.com/lighghtmusic/status/1018593057602723843

https://twitter.com/Bro_Pair/status/1018619482934108160

Unsworth has since replied by stating that he has not ruled out taking legal against Musk.

Not the first time Musk has taken aim at the rescue operation

Previously, Musk had criticised Narongsak Osotthanakorn, the Thai commander of the rescue operation as no "subject matter expert" on cave rescue.

The former Thai provincial governor (described inaccurately as “rescue chief”) is not the subject matter expert. That would be Dick Stanton, who co-led the dive rescue team. This is our direct correspondence: pic.twitter.com/dmC9l3jiZR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 10, 2018

This was in response to Osotthanakorn telling the BBC that the submarine was impractical.

A history of Twitter tirades

Musk has a history of attacking his critics.

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During peak production of the Tesla Model 3 car to achieve his own deadline of having 5,000 Model 3s built in a week, Musk lashed out against a variety of people whom he saw as criticising his company.

This included journalists, Wall Street analysts, labor unions and even federal crash-safety investigators. Musk's twitter tirade peaked in June with 86 posts.

Musk admitted in an interview with Bloomberg however, that he had a "mistaken assumption":

"...of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season. And that is my mistake. I will correct it."

It was an interview done 2 days before he responded to Unsworth's criticism of his submarine by calling him a paedophile.

Top Image from Elon Musk Twitter