Elon Musk Headed to Trial in U.K. Caver’s Defamation Case

Musk had hired private investigator to dig up dirt on caver
U.S. judge rules that jury must examine Tesla CEO’s tweets

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By Edvard Pettersson

October 28, 2019 at 9:54 PM UTC

Updated on

October 29, 2019 at 12:43 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Elon Musk will have to go to trial in December after a federal judge rebuffed his latest request to throw out a defamation lawsuit filed by a U.K. caver after Musk referred to him as a “pedo guy.”

U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles on Monday ruled that 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. The Tesla CEO’s accusations, the judge said, were not germane to any public controversy involving Vernon Unsworth, which might have entitled him to a free-speech defense.