Big Manbaby Elon Musk Called One Of The Thai Cave Rescuers A “Pedo”

Y’know that dude at your university who immediately shot up his hand to answer every question, then couldn’t handle it when someone criticised him? Now imagine that dude had a few billion dollars and some rockets. You’re imagining Elon Musk.

In this case, the criticism came from a British cave diving expert who said he wasn’t too impressed with Musk’s plan to rescue the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave system in Chiang Rai.

In case you missed it, Musk flew into Thailand at the height of the media frenzy surrounding the trapped boys, offering to help get them out. His plan was to put them all in a boy-sized submarine to get them to safety.

Depending on who you ask, Musk was either just a huge attention seeker or a billionaire rocket inventor just trying to do his bit. Rescue officials said “thanks but no thanks”, saying Musk’s plan was “not practical”. They then put their own plan into action and it, y’know, worked

Musk then criticised the leader of the rescue mission, saying he was “not the subject matter expert” and any goodwill towards Musk dried up.

In an interview with CNN, Vern Unsworth basically told Musk to shove his submarine up his arse. Step up, actual Thai cave rescuer Vern Unsworth. Talking to CNN after the mission had wrapped up, 63-year-old Unsworth had some choice words for Musk:

“He can stick his submarine where it hurts,” the expert diver said. “It just had absolutely no chance of working. He had no conception of what the cave passage was like.”

Unsworth had been helping out the mission from the beginning: he has lived in Chiang Rai for six years, and frequently explores the caves where the Thai soccer team was found. He was the one who helped pinpoint exactly where the boys were within the cave complex.

Unsworth continued:

“The sub I believe was five or six feet long, rigid, so it wouldn’t have gone around corners or around any obstacles. It wouldn’t have made the first fifty metres into the cave from the dive start point. Just a PR stunt.”

 

So how did Musk’s fragile ego handle this criticism? Badly. Very, very badly.

First, Musk seemed to question whether Unsworth was even there. Then, like a petulant child, Musk said he’d send his little submarine into the cave anyway, just to prove it could work.

Then came the big finale. Musk, for no reason whatsoever, called Unsworth a “pedo”. The basis of this claim, it seems, is that Unsworth is a British expat living in Thailand.

This is apparently enough for an accusation of pedophilia.

Never tweet pic.twitter.com/VIOyPA2qNG

— Paul Kidd (@paulkidd) July 15, 2018

Musk has since deleted the tweets but not apologised.

Might be time to put down the phone, Elon.