Elon Musk, the eccentric CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is known for his rather controversial tweets.

However, one of those tweets, where he called a British cave diver a "pedo guy", has landed him into a defamation lawsuit.

Bloomberg reports that Musk's attempts to throw out the lawsuit has been dismissed by a federal judge in Los Angeles, and he will have to go to trial in December.

Offered to help with the Thai caves rescue in 2018

In 2018, Elon Musk offered to help with the rescue of 12 boys and their football coach, who were stranded in a cave in Northern Thailand.

After suggesting several ideas for how to extract the 13 individuals from the cave, he eventually settled on a mini-submarine, which he personally brought down to the rescue site.

However, many considered his submarine idea impractical, deeming it a publicity stunt.

The submarine was never used for the actual rescue, which utilised a group of seasoned divers to escort each individual one at a time.

One of the more outspoken critics was Vernon Unsworth, who happens to be the British diver currently suing Musk for defamation.

Musk called one of the rescue divers a "pedo guy"

Unsworth was one of the divers who played an instrumental role in the rescue operation, by pinpointing the estimated location of the trapped individuals in the Tham Luang cave complex.

He criticised Musk's plan, stating that his submarine plan "had absolutely no chance of working", as "he had no conception of what the cave passage was like."

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

This predictably annoyed Musk, who took to Twitter to undermine Unsworth's contributions to the rescue.

He also called Unsworth a "pedo guy", and initially doubled down on his paedophile comment before later deleting the tweet.

While he later apologised in a rather back-handed manner, Unsworth threatened to sue Musk for defamation.

Musk, who publicly stated "I f***ing hope he sues me", got what he asked for when Unsworth filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles seeking damages against the iconic billionaire, according to The Guardian.

Musk defends his paedophile comment

Musk claims that he did not intend to accuse Unsworth of being a paedophile, according to Reuters.

"'Pedo guy' was a common insult used in South Africa when I was growing up," said Musk, who was raised in South Africa in his youth.

"It is synonymous with 'creepy old man' and is used to insult a person's appearance and demeanor."

He added that his response, calling Unsworth a "creepy old man", was meant as an insult, but not meant to be defamatory.

Tried to prove Unsworth was a paedophile

In an attempt to prove that his words were not defamatory, Musk hired a private investigator to look into Unsworth's background.

The man he hired, James Howard-Higgins, initially appeared to have done his job well.

He reported to Musk that Unsworth was in fact a child rapist who married a 12-year-old child bride, who lived for 30 years in Pattaya Beach, according to BuzzFeed News.

Pattaya beach is a well known location for sex tourism, with many tourists visiting annually for underaged prostitutes.

Musk then sent an email to a BuzzFeed News reporter on Aug. 30, 2018, asking the reporter to look into Unsworth's background.

"I suggest you call people you know in Thailand, find out what's actually going on and stop defending child rapist, you f***ing asshole," he wrote.

The private investigator turned out to be a fraud

Instead of finding more damning evidence on Unsworth, BuzzFeed News revealed that Howard-Higgins, who was paid US$50,000 (around S$68,000) by Musk, was in fact a fraud.

He was a convicted felon and a scammer, having previously been sentenced to three years in prison for stealing money from his business partners.

Musk, upon realising his mistake, told The Guardian that he regretted emailing the BuzzFeed reporter in question, saying it was "one of the dumbest things I've ever done."

Musk is allegedly looking forward to the trial

According to Bloomberg, a jury will have to decide whether Musk was negligent for failing to check that statements he made in his tweets and "off-the-record" emails were true.

As burden of proof for negligence is lower than that of malice, it will be easier for the panel to find Musk liable for defamation.

However, proving whether Musk acted with malice or otherwise could still be used in seeking punitive damages.

Musk's attorney, Alex Spiro, said they were looking forward to the trial.

"We understand that, while Musk has apologised, Unsworth would like to milk his 15 minutes of fame,' he said.

On the other hand, Unsworth scoffed at Musk's defence that he didn't intend for his off-the-record email to be published.

According to Unsworth, Musk "admitted that he wanted the information published whether true or false, and told the reporter that publication is 'up to you.'"

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Top image from Wikimedia Commons.