Tesla co-founder Elon Musk has insisted that a tweet in which he described a British caver as "pedo guy" amounted to a flippant remark and did not mean he was accusing the man of pedophilia.
"Pedo guy is less significant than pedo. If you add guy to something, it's less serious," the 48-year-old tech billionaire testified on the second day of his defamation trial in Los Angeles federal court.
The trial concerns a lawsuit filed by British caver Vernon Unsworth -- who helped rescue youth soccer players trapped in a cave in Thailand -- over the "pedo guy" tweet and other derogatory remarks Musk made against him.
The July 2018 row between the two men erupted after Unsworth described the entrepreneur's proposal to build a mini-submarine to rescue the boys as a "PR stunt."
He also said that Musk could "stick his submarine where it hurts."
Attorneys for both sides in court have been going over the meaning of the term "pedo guy," which Musk claims was a common insult in South Africa, where he grew up, and meant "creepy old man."
"It's obviously an insult, no one interpreted it as meaning he was actually a pedophile."
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content