Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk apparently doesn’t take criticism very well, taking to Twitter late last night to call a British diver who took part in the Thai cave rescue a “pedo” after he publicly slammed the — ultimately unused — mini-submarine Musk created to aid in the rescue.
The Tesla tycoon’s tweet, which he clearly thought better of moments later, was quickly deleted. Unfortunately for Musk, a screenshot had already circulated global media and Twitter. Because the internet.
Musk’s baseless comment came after Unsworth (hailed as a “hero” for his part in the cave rescue) accused the billionaire of publicly involving himself in Luang Cave drama as a “PR stunt,” adding that he could “stick his submarine where it hurts.” Ouch.
“It absolutely had no chance of working. He had no conception of what the cave passage was like,” Unsworth told CNN.
“It wouldn’t have made the first 50 meters into the cave from the dive start point. Just a PR stunt.”
https://twitter.com/QTRResearch/status/1017914936289349635
Although the authorities had already rescued the first four children by last Sunday, Musk still flew all the way to Chiang Rai to drop off his submarine the next day, a move that gained the tech entrepreneur praise from his fans (and derision from plenty of others).
According to Unsworth, the rescuers were not in that first group.
“He [Musk] was asked to leave very quickly,” the British diver recalled.
Unsworth, who lives in Chiang Rai, played a major role in linking the Thai authorities with the three British dive experts who ended up discovering the 13 soccer players first. It was also Unsworth who pinpointed where the 13 would likely be waiting, according to CNN.
Musk may be a good at building rockets, but when it comes to fighting battles on Twitter, not so much. Last week, he lashed out after Provincial Governor Narongsak Osottanakorn, the chief of the rescue site, publicly described the submarine as “impractical” at a press conference.
The thin-skinned wonder fired back that the former Chiang Rai governor was “not the subject matter expert” — although it’s fair to note Narongsak has a degree in engineering.
Try again, Elon.
https://twitter.com/bdgrabinski/status/1018519914758397952
https://twitter.com/SouthrnGothHick/status/1018519153618096128
