So the Elon Musk defamation verdict came down on Friday and I've had opinions rattling around since I read the news over breakfast Saturday morning, so here they are, for whatever they're worth.
Quick recap for anyone who wasn't following the whole saga: back during the Thai cave rescue in the summer of 2018, Musk got into it with Vernon Unsworth, the British caver who actually helped find and extract those kids. Musk had offered up a mini-submarine as a rescue tool, Unsworth publicly called it a PR stunt and told Musk to "stick his submarine where it hurts," and Musk responded by calling him "pedo guy" on Twitter. Then, months later, when a reporter followed up, Musk doubled down over email with much worse and much more specific accusations. Unsworth sued for defamation. The trial happened last week in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles, closing arguments wrapped Thursday, and the jury came back Friday afternoon siding with Musk. Not liable. Case closed, more or less.
I've been half-watching this thing since it started, mostly because I find it fascinating (in a slightly nauseating way) how casually a guy worth tens of billions of dollars can lob an accusation like that at a private citizen and have it become a multi-year legal ordeal instead of, I dont know, a moment of "maybe I shouldnt tweet that." I dont think the verdict is shocking, honestly — defamation cases in the US have a genuinely high bar, and Musk's lawyers argued the phrase was hyperbole, an insult thrown in anger rather than a factual claim, and apparently the jury bought that. Fine. Thats how the law works. But I keep getting stuck on the fact that "not legally defamatory" and "a decent thing to say about a stranger who just helped rescue twelve kids from a flooded cave" are two completely different standards, and only one of them got tested in that courtroom.
What bugs me more, if Im honest, is the precedent it sets in spirit even if not technically in law: that Twitter beef gets treated by juries (and by extension the rest of us) as inherently less serious than the same words said anywhere else. Say "pedo guy" about someone at a dinner party and see how that goes over. Say it in a company memo. But say it in 280 characters at 1am and apparently its just Elon being Elon. Ive gotten into my own share of dumb arguments online over the years (nothing on this scale, obviously, Im not important enough for anyone to sue me over a tweet) but Ive noticed the same pattern in miniature. People say things online they would never say to a persons face, and then act baffled when someone takes it personally.
Anyway. I spent an unreasonable chunk of Friday afternoon refreshing legal reporter Twitter threads waiting for the verdict instead of doing actual work, which in retrospect was not a great use of a Friday, but here we are. Old habits.
Worth noting, since it happened the same week and I dont want to pretend it didnt: Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped down from running Alphabet on Tuesday, handing the whole thing over to Sundar Pichai, who was already running Google day-to-day anyway. I dont have a hot take on that one that a hundred other blogs havent already written better, so Ill just leave it there as a "yes, I noticed, no, I dont have much to add."
One more small thing while Im in complaining mode: I've had Stadia running on my TV for about three weeks now and the input lag on wifi is still bad enough that I gave up on Destiny 2 entirely and went back to my actual console. Great idea, rough execution, the usual story with anything that launches in November and needs six more months in the oven.
Court transcripts, apparently, are public record and searchable, and I may or may not have spent part of my Saturday reading through excerpts of this one instead of doing the dishes. No regrets.