Elon Musk can ‘stick his submarine where it hurts’, says British caver who helped rescue Thai schoolboys
This is Vern Unsworth, who lives in Thailand, and spent 6 years diving and exploring in the caves. He was vital to the rescue. His maps were used, and he gave the location where he thought the boys would be, which proved to be roughly correct.
Also:
I didn’t watch much of the World Cup championship so can anyone tell me if they mentioned the Thai cave rescue during the coverage or during the event?
I’m not so sure it was just PR, I think a big percentage is also ego and naive assumptions (caused by ego typically) about being able to solve any problem without really knowing the constraints (similar to car mfg).
Elon has gone off the rails. He has responded to Vern Unsworth’s criticism by calling him a pedophile.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018497953051258880
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1018513369404493824?s=19
Aye; that’s a big “wtf?” moment right there.
don’t look now, but there are commenters on Gizmodo right now defending those statements.
From the Guardian:
Elon Musk calls British diver in Thai cave rescue a ‘pedo’ in baseless attack
My opinion of Musk has never been very high, but it’s just hit rock bottom. Making that false statement to his 22 million followers endangers the life of Vern Unsworth.
What a childish, vicious, arrogant, irresponsible thing to do, just because his fragile ego can’t handle the truth. I hope he’ll be banned from Twitter.
Musk has been spending too much time sleeping under his factory desk.
On a lighter note, I was watching the final FIFA match and the players were signing soccer balls. I’m wondering if those were for the kids.
Looks like he deleted all the tweets.
On the internet, there is no undelete 
Ain’t that the truth.
I don’t know if I’ve been living under a rock, but I had no idea Musk was such a douche.
I think Mr. Musk is a reasonably froopy dude and I like the businesses he’s started since he gained his fortune, but this was a terrible, terrible thing to say and it becomes truly reprehensible knowing how large his audience is (and knowing that people will defend ANY ddamned thing one of their “heroes” does).
I dunno about the “truth” part. Frankly, I think it was total dick move for Mr. Unsworth to have said anything about Mr. Musk, let alone call him out like he did. I have no way of knowing Mr. Musk’s motivations until and unless he states them and neither does Mr. Unsworth, and I can’t come up with any reason at all that Mr. Unsworth should have said anything, negative or positive, about Mr. Musk’s offer/attempt to participate in the rescue operation.
TL;DR: My opinion of both men’s social acumen isn’t very high right now.
Maybe Musk showed up and started trying to butt in and tell the rescuers that they were doing it wrong and should be using his mini-sub and that’s why Unsworth said what he did about the sub.
bullshit. Unsworth spent six years exploring those caves, Elon spent none. I think one of the comments on Gizmodo said it best:
IMO Unsworth was far nicer than he needed to be.
Wow - great work, Ale!
…yep. Unsworth punched up. He’s just spent weeks working his ass off, my understanding worked for free, rescuing the boys. Literally risked his life. Watching others risk their lives. Watching others sacrifice their time, their farms, on the most risky of rescues, that was about as successful as one could hope for. A reporter asked him a question and he responded in the heat of the moment. Not unexpected from a person who isn’t normally in the public spotlight.
Musk has no excuses. Not only did he call Unsworth a “pedo”, he suggested the rescue was easy, that things weren’t that flooded, challenged Unsworth to produce video of the rescue and said he was going to send the sub back in to prove that it could be done. The only thing Musk didn’t do was suggest that they send the boys back in so he could rescue them all over again. (Although I saw on twitter this morning that someone had set up a gofundme to to pay him to do exactly that.)
Totally agree. I can’t see on what basis one would have assumed vile intents on Musk’s part.
Now, of course, he has managed to make himself the villain of the story pretty efficiently.
There are many manufacturers of specialist submarine and diving equipment around the world, and any number of large and sophisticated engineering companies. There are also many billionaire entrepreneurs. None of them, except Musk, rushed in unasked with full media coverage.
Musk wasn’t asked for help. His help wasn’t needed or wanted. He knows nothing about diving equipment or cave diving, and nothing about the conditions in that particular cave and rescue operation.
He saw an opportunity for self-promotion and took it. He noted the major publicity around the rescue operation, and decided to jump on the bandwagon. That’s all.
He had no genuine concern for the boys or the rescue. If he had had any genuine concern, the first thing he would have done would have been to talk to the people involved and ask them what, if anything, was required. He didn’t. He just went off and did his own irrelevant thing, with huge free publicity in the media, and a potentially negative effect on the rescue operation.
Vern Unsworth was speaking the plain truth - something that few people do to powerful billionaires. Musk’s reaction - to make a vicious, lying personal attack on him - says a lot about Musk’s lack of character.
Vern could have been a bit more diplomatic with his response to Elon, but apart from that, I agree with this post in totality.