Thread by @RMac18

Back at court for the Musk defamation trial. He just entered the court. Im getting oddly good at timing these entrances and exits.

This will be my Day 2 thread.

Unsworth in a pink shirt and pinker tie just entered the courthouse with the majority of his legal team about 3 mins after Musk.

A member of Unsworth’s legal team, one of Lin Wood’s sons, comes in carrying a printer in a box. He says they broke their other one last night.

Courtroom is now open so everyone’s filing inside. We’re expected to pick up with Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro questioning his client on the stand then plaintiffs will get another opportunity to question. More updates at the break.

On break. Spiro began his direct questioning by establishing that Musk was asked to be at the cave dive site by a diver named Rick Stanton. They want to establish that what Unsworth said about Musk being asked to leave was “a lie” as Musk said.

Musk’s defense continues to frame the “pedo guy” insult as a tit for tat matching Unsworth’s insult. While Musk regrets tweeting it, he still maintains that it was never meant to be taken seriously or interpreted as an accusation of pedophilia.

Asked about why he tweeted “bet ya a signed dollar” Musk had an interesting line. It means “it’s not impossible... it’s like if someone goes to Colorado a lot they might be going to get weed... though not if you’re from California.”

Some jurors giggled.

Musk’s defense also takes the approach of establishing that no one really ever asked Musk what he truly meant by “pedo guy” until his deposition this summer. But still he regrets saying it.

“As my mom says, if someone insults you just let it go.”

On recross, plaintiff attorney Lin Wood tries to establish that Unsworth might never have seen musk’s apology because he’s not on Twitter. Musk suggests he probably saw it because because “most things I say on Twitter will get press awareness.”

Wood then enters pages of Musk’s tweets into the record showing that Musk tweeted a lot about the cave rescue. It’s not clear why he did this though it may show just how much credit and publicity Musk got from the rescue despite saying that he sought no press.

Musk: “I don’t remember every tweet... there’s thousands of them.”

Amen man.

When asked about press coverage of “pedo guy” tweets, Musk claims that all the coverage he read, while negative against him, interpreted it as an insult and not a direct accusation of pedophilia. This seems dubious.

Seizing on that, Wood tries to ask Musk about coverage of the tweets from Norway, Sweden and Finland. Judge Wilson stops him, “let’s no go through the globe” and then asks Musk jokingly what languages he does speak. (A little bit of Spanish, French and German apparently).

Back into court. Brb

Musk is done with testimony. After the break Musk says he did receive notes of concerns from shareholders about his “pedo guy” tweet tho he gets complaints often. Wood then asked about Musk’s net worth with the judge allowed over objections.

Musk said he has Tesla and spacex shares but has debt against them. “Some people think I have a lot of cash, but I don’t.”

Wood asks him to give an estimate of net worth but Musk claimed to not know. When asked if it’s around $20 billion Musk said that sounds reasonable.

Jared Birchall, the head of Musk’s family office Excession, was next on the stand. He testified that Musk “at times... would specifically direct me to do things.”

Birchall is the guy who on Musk’s behalf hires a PI to dig up dirt on Unsworth. That PI turned out to be a conman.

This was our earlier story on the investigator con man that Birchall hired. It’s uhhhh wild. buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanma…

Wood establishes that Birchall used an alias “Jim brickhouse” to correspond with the PI. Birchall says he used that to in part protect Musk and that he used the alias before in coordinating Musk’s travel, registering a web domain, and helping a Libyan refugee(??).

Wood showed emails between Birchall and Howard where Birchall instructs Howard to leak info to the UK press insinutating Unsworth was a pedophile.

Birchall claims that he said to distribute what he believed at the time to be “facts.” He “understood these as facts.”

Wood also gets Birchall to say he did no research to confirm Howard’s PI credentials and took the conman at his word. It was previously estblished that Howard was paid $52,000.

Then Wood was done with the witness and we broke for lunch.

Birchall was questioned by defense attorney michael lifrak after lunch. Defense tries to establish that the hiring of the PI was because Musk felt litigation was imminent. Birchall says that PI was told to find and leak “facts” to help catalyze “investigative reporting.”

Y’all gonna love this. Defense brings up a march 2018 email from Birchall using the Jim brickhouse name and email when he was trying to buy a web domain for Musk.

The domain Musk wanted to buy was .

Terms were never agreed and they never bought it.justballs.com

Upon recross, Wood asked why hire a PI to combat potential litigation if that PI was just going to leak info to the press.

Birchall conceded that part of the campaign was to combat the negative press against Musk.

Wood got stonewalled by objections and the judge after that and kind of got flustered. He clearly does not have a great relationship with the judge.

He concluded but not before asking about in his thick southern accent. This is gonna haunt me.justballs.com

The next witness up was cave diver and hero Rick Stanton. Tbh he didn’t do much for either side besides establish Unsworth as key to the rescue. Both sides got stonewalled though Spiro came off looking particularly owned after getting multiple tellings off by the judge.

Next up on the stand: plaintiff Vernon Unsworth. See you guys on the other side.

Rick Stanton actually gave a quick interview to reporters after testifying. He was the main diver in communication with Musk who asked him to build the tube. He said that the pod was never going to work and was not built to specification. It was never going to work he said.

He said that Musk showing up at the cave system with the tube, which clearly would not work, was “showboating.” He did not have nice things to say about the tube and wouldn’t even call it “a submarine.” He wouldn’t comment on the “pedo guy” statement.

Remember that musk’s defense is heavily reliant on saying that Stanton asked him to build the tube, which is true. Stanton is just saying now the tube would have never worked based on video he saw. He hasn’t even seen the tube or met Musk in person.

Oddly Stanton never said this on the stand because Unsworth’s legal team never asked. A huge missed opportunity.

Back in court now.

On a short break Unsworth, when questioned by his lawyer Taylor Wilson, outlined his role in the rescue before giving his reaction to the “pedo guy” tweet. “It hurts to talk about it,” he said.

“When you combine sus with pedo guy I took it to mean I was being branded a pedophile,” said Unsworth. He called it “disgusting.”

“Effectively form day 1, I was given a life sentence without parole,” he said, his voice halting and cracking.

The jury had a clear reaction to Unsworth’s heartfelt testimony. One who had been dozing off perked up, others leaned forward.

Unsworth said he bottled up the pain and has had “good days and bad days.” “I find it hard to read the word.”

On cross, Musk’s lawyers tried to undermine Unsworth by showing text messages of where he sought emails between a member of the five team and musk. He also tried to asked Unsworth about colloquialisms. It didn’t feel like any of it landed.

Unsworth will remain on the stand tomm for cross. Then a few more witnesses and then to the jury possibly by Friday. Among the witnesses tomm will be Vanessa Unsworth, the plaintiff’s separated wife, and clips of a video depositon from Sam Teller, Musk’s former chief of staff.

After trial Rick Stanton gave another press interview and said it was the first time he’s realized how hurt Unsworth was by the tweets after seeing the testimony. He said it’s “shameful” Musk wasn’t sitting there as a defendant to see the plain he inflicted.

Worth noting that Unsworth has sat through every minute of the trial. Musk has only participated for his testimony and has been out of the courtroom for the rest.

And with that see y’all tomm.

Lol I almost forgot, one of Musk’s lawyers today pronounced “Elon” the wrong way today during questioning of a witness and was corrected by Lin Wood. He originally pronounced it “Alon”.

Upon going thru my notes and reading some other recaps from yesterday, it's clear that Unsworth's side were trying to make this case but were stonewalled by the judge. @mslopatto has a good recount of it here: theverge.com/2019/12/5/2099…