Elon Musk’s allegedly defamatory tweets calling a British cave rescuer a "pedo guy" can’t be just be pooh-poohed as mere opinion, Vernon Unsworth, the caver who sued the Tesla Inc. chief executive last year, said in a request to a judge to deny Musk’s attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed.
Musk can’t escape liability by arguing that his tweets are just his opinion because Tesla has said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing that Musk’s Twitter account is "a medium to communicate facts," Unsworth said in a court filing Friday. And, if they are meant as factual statements, Musk can be sued for defamation.