Elon Musk changes his phones when he visits China to avoid hacking
Elon Musk conceded ‘it’s been a bad year’ while being grilled over his Tesla tweets and revealed he changes phones when visiting China to avoid being hacked in August deposition for his ‘pedo’ defamation case
- Musk was deposed on August 22, 2019, about the year he’d had as Tesla CEO
- It was part of his legal fight with Vernon Unsworth, the diver he called a ‘pedo’
- Musk said it had been the ‘worst ever’ year for him, something he’s said before
- At the time, he’d been fined $20m by the SEC for inflammatory tweets
- He had also come under harsh scrutiny over Tesla’s production line
- Musk also admitted that his SpaceX and Tesla teams replace his phones for him
- He said they also insist on wiping it when he travels to China to avoid hacking
- Unsworth is suing him for defamation over the tweet and an email Musk later sent BuzzFeed in which he further alluded that he was a pedophile
- Musk’s team say the British diver is motivated by greed and wants ‘his 15 minutes of fame’
Elon Musk’s said he’d the ‘worst year ever’ in newly released court documents from August this year
Elon Musk conceded that he’d had a ‘bad year’, describing it as ‘the worst ever’ in a deposition in August as part of his legal battle against a British cave diver who he called a ‘pedo’.
The comments emerged on Monday in the most recent court filing in Musk’s legal fight with Vernon Unsworth, a Brit who helped rescue a group of Thai soccer players after they got trapped in a cave network in June last year.
Also included in that filing are requests from Unsworth’s team to exclude certain things from the jury, namely that he is also suing Musk in the UK.
The story captivated the world, with millions rallying for the boys to be rescued. Musk was among the people eager for them to survive. He sent a SpaceX team of engineers to try to help with the mission and came up with the idea of sending a mini submarine in to the cave to ferry the boys out, one by one.
He and Unsworth first came to blows when the latter mocked the idea in an interview with CNN. He called it a publicity stunt and said it would never have worked.
The Tesla CEO then called him a ‘pedo guy’ on Twitter and, it has since emerged, later hired a private investigator to find dirt on him. He paid the PI $50,000.
Their current court dispute stems from the ‘pedo guy’ and an email Musk sent to a BuzzFeed reporter alleging that he had been told Unsworth had married his wife when she was underage and alluding to other nefarious character traits, none of which turned out to be true. BuzzFeed, despite Musk’s insistence that the email was ‘off the record’, published it.
Musk conceded he’d had the ‘worst ever’ year in deposition in August 22 this year
The billionaire also admitted to switching his phones when he travels to China
Unsworth is now suing the eccentric billionaire for defamation and he is fighting it at every turn.
In the most recent court filing – a transcript of an August 2019 deposition Musk gave for the case – he is asked about his mental state and the state of his affairs when he made the ‘pedo’ remark.
At the time, Musk had enraged the board of Tesla and stunned the SEC by tweeting that he was taking the company private for $420 a share. It was, he later said, a joking reference to 4/20, a modern ‘holiday’ of sorts dedicated to celebrating marijuana.
Elon Musk’s legal fight with Vernon Unsworth, a British diver who he called a ‘pedo’, will go to a jury trial on December 3
The tweet sent Tesla’s stock price sky rocketing and created ripple waves in the market.
The SEC later sued him for it and, as part of a settlement, Musk agreed to pay a $20million fine. At the time, he was also facing tough questions on whether Tesla would be able to meet ambitious production goals.
‘Last year was a bad year…. probably worst ever,’ he said during an August 22 deposition.
He went on to admit that his Tesla and SpaceX teams regularly replace his phones for him and that he always swaps them out when traveling to China.
‘Generally, if I travel to China, they have to give me a new phone because they’re worried about hacking or something,’ he said.
Asked if what he does with his old phones, he said: ‘My phones are generally wiped and wiped and then that’s it.’
Included in the lawsuit are dozens of emails and text messages exchanged between the private investigator and Musk’s associate Jared Birchall. Above is an email the investigator sent highlighting what he did and did not know
The filing also includes a deposition from Jared Birchall, one of his associates who enlisted to work with the private investigator, James Howard.
DailyMail.com previously laid bare how the pair, working with Howard, sought to leak information about Unsworth to the press that Howard claimed he had found.
Musk’s attorneys, who claim the Brit is a fame-hungry and out for money, are arguing that Musk is innocent of defamation because he genuinely believed what the private investigator had told him and that he did not know BuzzFeed would publish the email he sent.
He said he only ever intended to act as a source for the reporter.
His attorney, Alex Spiro, points to the fact that Unsworth is trying to hide from the jury that he is also suing Musk over the same issue in the UK.
He declined to comment when approached by DailyMail.com on Tuesday.
Other things Unsworth says he does not want shown at their trial include posts he has written in Thai on Facebook.
Unsworth’s attorneys say all of the subjects listed for exclusion – including whether or not he has ever watched pornography or child pornography (something Musk’s lawyers asked him during a deposition), are either irrelevant or prejudicial.
His answers to those questions have not yet been made public.
The case will go to jury trial in California on December 3.
TIMELINE OF THE THAI RESCUE AND MUSK AND UNSWORTH’S DISPUTE
June 23 2018: The boys and their soccer coach become trapped in the caves
July 8: Musk tweets that he is using Tesla engineers to build a ‘kid size’ submarine to try to get them out
The Thai soccer team got lost in caves while exploring and became stuck for days. Musk offered to help and sent a team of Tesla engineers to build a submarine to get them out
July 8 – 10: The boys were rescued gradually in a complex mission involving hundreds of people
July 13: Vernon Unsworth gives a CNN interview where he is asked about Musk’s plan. He calls it a ‘PR stunt’ and says: ‘He can stick it where it hurts’ in reference to the submarine
July 15: Musk tweets calling him a ‘pedo guy’
Musk tweeted this last July after Unsworth told CNN the Tesla CEO’s plan to rescue the boys with a submarine would not work
July 17: Musk apologizes
August 15: Musk hires Howard after he got in touch with him saying, in an email: ‘Dear Elon, you may wish to dig deep and look into Mr. Unsworth’s past… no smoke without fire!’
They set about launching their ‘investigation’ but go to great lengths to keep Musk separate from it. In emails, Musk’s associate Jared Birchall carried out their dealings and Musk was referred to as ‘the principle’. He and Birchall never discussed it in writing.
August 24: Birchall emailed Howard asking for ‘confirmation that Unsworth met his wife when she was a minor’
August 25: Birchall emailed Howard saying: ‘For successful confirmation of nefarious behavior there is an additional $10k bonus’
August 27: Howard is instructed to launch a media ‘leak’
‘Priority is to divert the story away from the principal and let the UK tabloids develp there [sic] story,’ he said.
He goes on to say UK readers are ‘familiar’ with Thailand ‘& its culture to welcome and protect sex tourist.
‘We call it Yellow Fever where older men leave there [sic] wives for a young Thai friend.’
Howard then told him in one text that he was the ‘only link on the chain who knows who the beneficiary is’.
‘The Thai team and Richard all believe that this is for a children’s charity in the UK,’ he said.
Despite trying to get journalists to print the unsubstantiated claims, none do.
August 28: Musk tweets in response to a follower who accused him of lying about Unsworth: ‘You don’t think it’s strange he hasn’t sued me yet?
August 30: BuzzFeed reporter emails Musk for a comment. He replies saying, among other things, that Unsworth married a ‘child bride’ and inferring that he is a rapist
September 4: BuzzFeed publishes the story
September 5: Private Investigator emails Birchall, Musk’s associate, saying: ‘At no time have have I reported that the target is a child rapist.’
September 17: Unsworth files a lawsuit against Musk
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