Vernon Unsworth filed new court papers on Monday in his defamation lawsuit against Elon Musk

In July 2018, Musk called him a 'pedo guy' in retaliation against Unsworth saying his plan to save Thai boys from a cave was a PR stunt

Musk then hired James Howard-Higgins, a con-man who emailed Musk out of the blue offering to find 'skeletons' in Unsworth's closet

He paid him $50,000 and Howard went to Thailand to investigate Unsworth but he found no proof he was a pedophile

Despite that, Musk told a BuzzFeed reporter to look into the British diver and inferred he was a 'child rapist' who had married his wife when she was '12'

He did not expect BuzzFeed to publish his claims but they did

Afterwards, he admitted in staff that he was a 'f*****g idiot'

Unsworth then sued him for defamation and Musk is fighting it claiming he thought the information was true and that Howard gave it to him

The new documents reveal the great lengths Musk went to to find dirt on him

The British cave rescuer who Elon Musk called a 'pedo guy' after he criticized the Tesla CEO's attempts to help save a group of Thai boys last year has accused Musk of making up defamatory allegations against him then scrambling to prove them and leaking them to the press in shocking new court filings.

Musk is being sued by diver Vernon Unsworth who was one of many people involved in the rescue operation to save the boys after they became trapped in a cave last June. Unsworth made headlines when he mocked Musk's idea to send a Tesla submarine in to get the boys as a 'PR stunt' which he said would never have worked.

ADVERTISEMENT

In response, Musk tweeted, calling him a 'pedo guy'. He then hired a private investigator for $50,000, asking him to dig up dirt on Unsworth, and later emailed a BuzzFeed reporter with unsubstantiated allegations against the man which the investigator was then tasked with proving.

Among them were the false claims that Unsworth married his wife when she was 12, that he was a child rapist and that he had been visiting Thailand for years and engaging in 'nefarious' behavior.

Musk has since claimed he is innocent because the private investigator 'told him' the allegations and because he never expected BuzzFeed would publish them.

In emails to his team about his behavior, he said he was a 'f*****g idiot'.

Elon Musk

Vernon Unsworth

But Unsworth's most recent filing includes emails between the investigator and Musk's team in which the investigator - who is a convicted felon - states that he never made such claims and that Musk 'drew a conclusion' from what he had told him.

As his ineptitude became apparent, Musk's associate stopped engaging with him gradually.

Later, in emails with his PR advisers, he admitted he was a 'f*****g idiot' for how he handled his interactions with BuzzFeed.

'Yes, this is extremely bad. I didn't expect BuzzFeed to publish an off the record email. My intent was to have them investigate and come to their on conclusions, not publish my email directly.... Still, I'm a f*****g idiot,' he said.

Musk hired James Howard-Higgins, a con man who got in touch wtih im offering up his services after Musk tweeted about Unsworth

Now, Unsworth and Musk are entangled in a legal battle.

Unsworth is suing him for unspecified damages in excess of $75,000 for allegedly defaming him.

In a statement to DailyMail.com on Tuesday, Musk's attorney Alex Spiro said: 'This case is nothing but a money-grab in which Unsworth has hired an agent and pursued profit, publicity and self-promotion at every turn.

'The truth of his motivations and actions will come out soon enough.'

He added that Musk believed everything he put in his email to BuzzFeed was true and that it was based on information he claims he got from his investigator.

'Everything that Mr. Musk put in that email, he believed to be based on information he received from the investigator.

'He believed it would never be published,' he said.

Musk is now trying to have the case thrown out.

ADVERTISEMENT

His defense is that he did not know the allegations he made against Unsworth were untrue, claiming to have gotten them from his PI, and also that in his native South Africa, calling someone a 'pedo guy' only means they are a 'creepy old man'.

In a blistering response to Musk's defense, Unsworth claims he did know the claims against him were untrue and that he set about trying to publicize them anyway because he is a 'thin skinned bully' who had a bruised ego.

I am the only link in the chain who knows who the beneficiary is.... [they] think this is for a children's charity Private investigator to Elon Musk's employee, Jared Birchall, discussing his media strategy to have unsubstantiated claims published about Unsworth

His attorneys describe in hundreds of pages worth of declarations that Musk knew the allegations from Howard were false or unsubstantiated but tried to leak them to the press in the UK and Australia before eventually sending them to a BuzzFeed reporter who published them.

The leak was staged for August 27, 2018.

Their 'priority' was, they said in emails, to 'divert the story away from the principal and let the UK tabloids develop there [sic] story.'

Howard went on to say UK readers were 'familiar' with Thailand '& 'its culture to welcome and protect sex tourist.'

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

Click here to resize this module

This is a page of one of the progress reports sent to Musk's team by the private investigator in Thailand. It contains extensive details about Unsworth's life but nothing about him being a pedophile

'We call it Yellow Fever where older men leave there [sic] wives for a young Thai friend,' he wrote.

Howard also revealed that he pretended to be working on behalf of a children's charity to get the story told instead of for Musk, saying 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.'

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

He says the private investigator never presented them as true facts but that Musk and his associate, Jared Birchall, thought there was 'enough there for a story'.

ADVERTISEMENT

'After spending over two weeks daily working to save the lives of 12 children and their soccer coach lost deep inside a dangerous Thai cave, Vernon Unsworth will now spend the rest of his life with the asterisk of pedophilia attached to his name as the direct result of a public relations campaign of false, heinous accusations by Elon Musk, a thin-skinned billionaire who is obsessed with his public image and who has a history of vindictively and intentionally ignoring truth to maintain that PR-created image.

'Like the bully that he is, Musk chose to lash out publicly at the criticism only be falsely attacking Unsworth, a relatively unknown individual, and publicly challenging him to sue for libel,' ' Unsworth's lawyers fumed in their filing.

Last month, Musk - who previously publicly apologized for the tweet at the insistence of the Tesla board - filed his own court papers explaining why he thinks he is innocent of defamation.

In a motion asking the judge to dismiss the case, he doubled down on his allegations against Unsworth and included others like that he married his wife when she was a teenager and that he'd been 'w***emongering' girls in Thailand.

Even though they turned out not to be true, Musk said he had no reason not to believe them because private investigator, James Howard-Higgins, told gave him the information.

Unsworth's most recent filing is a response to that and refutes that Howard ever called him a child rapist.

He lays out in it how Musk allegedly set 'in motion' a malicious attempt to besmirch his reputation by trying to prove, without evidence, that he was a pedophile.

'The truth is that the media was ridiculing Musk about the tube, calling it a PR stunt, likely because Musk frequently tweeted about it, posting photos and videos.

'Musk retaliated by trying to destroy him - making up out of whole cloth and publishing to the world false accusations that Unsworth is a pedophile and child rapist who married a 12-year-old.

He pointed out that Musk hired Howard after he called him a 'pedo guy' on Twitter and claims that he offered him a $10,000 bonus if he could produce proof of the apparently 'nefarious behavior' Howard said Unsworth was connected to in Thailand.

Between July 15, when Musk first issued the tweet, and August 28, he and his associate were working quietly with Howard to try to find proof that would back up the allegation, the court papers claim.

On August 15, he hired 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.

On August 25, Birchall emailed Howard saying: 'For successful confirmation of nefarious behavior there is an additional $10k bonus'.

Two days later, Howard was instructed to launch a media 'leak', according to the papers.

'We would like you to immediately move forward with leaking this information to the UK press. Obviously must be done very carefully.

'The line of thinking is...: Thailand is the world capital of pedophilia. This man has frequented Thailand since the 80s. While the guise of cave exploration is creative, there are amazing and extensive caving systems in many places throughout the world.... He eventually woman [sic] 30 years his minor whom he met while she was a teenager. He had been going to Thailand for decades before marrying her.

'She wasn't the first girl he met - and definitely not the first teenager he interacted with. Share the facts and as you said, that should be enough for a story,' Birchall said in an email that is quoted in the filing.

Musk was sent an email by a BuzzFeed journalist on August 29 asking him about the lawsuit

He replied saying first that Unsworth was not 'even a diver' and then, when the BuzzFeed journalist replied to say that he was, he sent the more shocking claims

The BuzzFeed reporter replied to say he would not go off the record and that he found no proof of what Musk claimed

Musk replied saying it would be a breach of the 'accepted rules of journalism' for the reporter to publish what he'd said

Text messages between Jared Birchall (whose texts are in blue) who worked for Musk and the private investigator with a link to the BuzzFeed story. The investigator was working on proving Unsworth was a pedophile but had found no evidence to suggest even a hint of impropriety

In a subsequent email, the private investigator said he had never told Musk or Birchall that Unsworth was a child rapist

Howard then tried to get the press to print the claims, emailing them to journalists under the email address 'bangkokjohn', the lawsuit alleges, but he was unsuccessful.

As speculation gathered that Unsworth was going to file a lawsuit, a BuzzFeed reporter emailed Musk for a comment.

In response, he said: 'Off the record. I suggest that you call people you know in Thailand, find out what's actualluy going on and stop defending child rapists, you f****** a**hole.

He's an old single white guy from England who's been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Ria for a child bride who was 12 years old at the time.

'There's only one reason people go to Pattaya Beach.

'It isn't where you'd go for caves, but it is where you'd go for something else. Chiang Rai is renowned for child sex-trafficking....I f****** hope he sues me.'

Musk sent this email to his staff after the BuzzFeed article was released where he said he had no idea it would be published and calling himself a f*****g idiot' for sending it

One of Muks's PR advisers said in an email that he should not engage in email exchanges with journalists but she gave him the compliment of an angel emoji with regard to his erratic Twitter feed

The BuzzFeed reporter replied to say that he had never agreed to speak off the record.

Musk hit back: 'If you want to publish off the record comments and destroy your journalistic credibility, that's up to you.'

BuzzFeed published the email exchange five days later.

When the reporter contacted Musk again, he replied: 'Get lost you creep'.

The private investigator, having seen the story, then contacted Birchall asking why Musk had made the comments publicly when there was no proof to back them up.

'At no time have I reported that the target is a child rapist. We need to be clear about what we are looking for.

'The target had a traveling pattern that shows he spent time before he moved to Northern Thailand in Pattaya,' Howard wrote.

Unsworth's wife Woranan Ratrawiphukkun, 40, previously dismissed the row in an interview with DailyMail.com. Musk and his team were obsessed with trying to prove that they met and married when she was a minor. In fact, they met in 2011, in London, when she was 32, Unsworth says in his filing

Birchall then claimed in one email in response that the private investigator had mentioned 'on the phone' that she Unsworth's wife was a teenager.

'You can agree that the data you provided would have allowed him to draw that conclusion?

Over the next few days, as it became apparent how inept Howard was, Birchall wound down their communication.

Unsworth filed his lawsuit on September 17.

It has since emerged that Howard is a con man who claimed to have worked for MI5 and George Soros.

In one of his emails to Birchall, he said he'd tried to have the story run in British and Australian news outlets by claiming he was working for a children's charity.

Unsworth said, in summarizing his case, Musk took matters into his own hands by sending emails to an adversarial reporter in response to a bona fide request for comment which stated, as a matter of fact, false accusations that Unswoth was a child rapist with a 12-year-old child bride.

ADVERTISEMENT

'With a straight face, Musk unabashedly seeks judgement because he claims legal protection for accusations of pedophilia against British men who spent time in Thailand.'