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A British diver who helped rescue a soccer team trapped in a cave in Thailand is suing Elon Musk for defamation after the Tesla CEO called him a "pedo" on Twitter.
According to a court filing obtained by news outlets, Vern Unsworth is seeking $75,000 in compensatory damages, additional punitive damages, and wants Musk prohibited from making false statements about him.
The dustup between Unsworth and Musk started when the diver criticized a vessel Musk offered to help rescue 12 boys and the coach of a Thai soccer team. During a CNN interview, Unsworth called the mini-submarine a "PR stunt."
"He can stick his submarine where it hurts," Unsworth said. "It just had absolutely no chance of working."
Musk lashed out, calling Unsworth a "pedo guy" in a since-deleted tweet.
"Apparently angered by his efforts being rejected or not being recognized, Musk intentionally sought to strike out publicly against Mr. Unsworth by damaging his reputation with a salacious and spurious accusation of pedophilia," read an excerpt from the filing.
Since then, Musk questioned why Unsworth didn't move forward with a lawsuit against him over the "pedo" remark.
"You don’t think it’s strange he hasn’t sued me? He was offered free legal services," Musk wrote on Twitter in August.
The lawsuit is among several missteps made by Musk over the last several months. In early August, he revealed on Twitter he had funding secure to take Tesla private at $420 a share. After a flurry of questions about how solid that offer really was, and whether his tweet violated U.S. securities rules, he later switched gears to announce the company would remain public.
Three months earlier, he ripped analysts during a Tesla quarterly earnings call for asking "boring" questions.
Earlier this month, Musk generated controversy following an appearance on a podcast where he appeared to smoke marijuana.
More:Why does Tesla CEO Elon Musk keep getting himself into a mess?
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
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