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I believe not.For starters — SpaceX, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is also a federal vendor and help NASA with resupplying it’s space stations. This was the job earlier done by Russian companies. A bit about NASA’s program —Commercial Resupply Services OverviewAnd since, Northrop & SpaceX has become vendors for NASA, Russians have been upping the ante. A bit about Russians stints —Russia just set a new space travel recordThe above pointers are important to set the context. When it comes to space exploration, US Federal Agencies’ agenda is to open it to innovation from private sector, to fend off competition from Chinese and Russians. Take note — SpaceX is ‘the’ great success story from that point of view.With that, consider the case of Elon Musk being caught on camera puffing. This is bad optics, but it’s neither unlawful nor threatening to American National Security.For disclosure, I may know a bit about security clearance business, having gone for few with Federal Agencies myself.The clearance requires background, financial and drug test as key. It’s a federal law to not allow illegal drug use for any federal employees and contractors. When Fed performs the background check they interview your friends, relatives, and some times folks in your native countries (if you happen to be immigrant). For drug use, same thing. They check your urine, medical record as well as social media.All that is a context for security clearance not for companies, but for individuals that want to do business with Fed. These clearances are given to indivuals. Companies get into vendor list for many different reasons, and do not require all their employees and executives to have same level of clearance.Only those who are accessing sesitive government information needs to have these security clearances. I know for sure many federal contractors who are in secret and too-secret federal businesses and yet do not have clearances for all their executives. Their executives do not work for Government, so they do not need any clearance anyway.So you can easily see why Elon Musk’s personal act may not jeopardize SpaceX business with Federal Government.Following are the probable scenarios —They will slap a warning to Elon but would not remove his clearance. This does not impact SpaceX.They will remove his clearance to set a precedence with others in business. This does not impact SpaceX.In the worst case scenario, they may put a condition to remove Elon Musk from SpaceX & Govt business. This still does little to impact SpaceX, because Elon has his deputies who are already running the show.There’s an old story for some more content around Relations between SpaceX and Federal Government —Elon Musk: The Future of Defense Contractors? - ClearanceJobs

The short of this piece (which will get into far more comprehensive detail) is that people should know that the following things are all true:Vern Unsworth, who happily contributed valuable resources to help the boys trapped in the Thai cave, then gave an interview after the rescue in which he rhetorically suckerpunched Musk, throwing shade at Musk’s efforts and motives, despite an admitted near-total ignorance concerning both those things.Musk, who had also happily contributed valuable resources to helping the boys, threw a wild haymaker in return, then trusted a private investigator he shouldn’t have, with this latter mistake being amplified by a journalist who published two emails from Musk about his interpretation of the investigator’s findings despite Musk being clear that he intended for his concerns to remain private, with his interest in sharing them being to provoke the journalist to investigate for himself. [EDIT: This gets worse / more complicated. We’ll get into it.]This whole thing started because CNN had Unsworth repeat something controversial on camera that had negative news value. To my knowledge, no media outlet since has made a serious effort at revisiting that, or at examining or explaining how the above things can all be true, choosing instead to focus solely on Musk’s wrongs (real and weighty as they are), which has only exacerbated the problem.This is an ugly story. No one comes out well. But it’s an important look at biases and incentives and effort, and how these factors often reshape reality into narratives that lead to ends incompatible with anything we ought to call justice.(For those wondering what’s new here vs. my past coverage, a new round of trial documents were released yesterday. What follows weaves the big takeaways into a timelined recap of what we know thus far.)My Relationship to This Story(I debated even including this section, as I don’t think I’m a very important focal point. But I ultimately judged it necessary for explaining why I’m so confident in my arguments, and to illustrate how uninterested the media at large has been in considering their own complicity here.)I published a rundown of Musk’s involvement with the Thai cave rescue on July 16th of last year. My goal was to examine a collection of popular takes on the story, “using context to determine how fair or unfair each claim might be”. This was something I did (and do) regularly as a spare-time project, which runs in parallel to my professional writing (which is mostly corporate).That piece spilled onto Twitter, eventually catching Musk’s attention. On July 17th he opted to retweet a link to it, accompanied by an apology to Unsworth:Nonetheless, his actions against me do not justify my actions against him, and for that I apologize to Mr. Unsworth and to the companies I represent as leader. The fault is mine and mine alone.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2018His gesture was poorly received, as was my post.Quoting The Verge:On Tuesday, Musk retweeted a fan [not me] who declared that “journalism is dead” and linked to a Quora post [mine] that defended Musk at length, both for his involvement in the rescue mission and his now-infamous “pedo” tweet.Not all the takes were that directly libellous (I did the opposite of defending said tweet), but most shared the same flavor. Mashable said my piece was “quite soft on Musk” and “critical of Unsworth”, which they imagined gave Musk an easy out to offer a half-hearted apology.While I have no personal insight into the sincerity of the apology itself (few do), I took great offense at the general laziness of these takes, leading me to spend a month or so of evenings collecting the available commentary on the case into an exhaustive analysis. But by the time I was done with it, the crowds had moved on, and no outlets I contacted were willing to publish it (in whole or in part).To the best of my knowledge, no outlet has yet revisited their coverage of the story, whether as it concerns me (not very important) or the dynamic between Musk and Unsworth (now the subject of two lawsuits and hundreds of articles).At the heart of it, my interest isn’t really in either of those two men, nor myself. My interest is in pushing for a better standard for journalism, where this story just happens to illustrate the current depth of that need.A Bet Is a Tax on BullshitBefore we head on down the rabbithole, a few points of preface:It’s trivial for two writers to claim the other is wrong. This is why I have a cash-for-corrections policy. Catch a mistake? I’ll send you my thanks along with some spending money. (This applies to journalists too. If someone finds that I’ve misrepresented them regarding something they’ve published, I’ll double the normal reward — happily.)I have no obvious way of knowing if good reporting exists on this story. While all but two of the 100+ articles I’ve read thus far have shared the same basic flaw (i.e., more or less exclusionary focus on Musk), it’s possible I’ve simply not come across the exceptions. I’m happy to offer $50 to anyone who can link me quality examples, which I’ll also share here as an edit. (Will pay the first reader to provide each link. As a reference point, this piece from Vox seems a minimum bar to me. Flawed, but with bright spots. Anything better wins.)The new court docs are all from Musk’s lawyers. We haven’t yet seen responses from Unsworth’s counsel, and won’t for another three weeks or so. Being mindful that this is a significant inequality, I commit to returning to add edits where any new information contradicts or colors anything written here, hopefully within a day or so of new docs being released. (That said, I encourage readers to be mindful that any information new to me would in most case also be new to the reporters whose work I’m deconstructing.)[EDIT: Those new docs were posted last night, Oct 7th. Some edits follows, each clearly marked.]Now, sure, there are obvious adjudication concerns on 1 and 2. While I think I’m a pretty reasonable guy, that’s, ahem, wildly subjective. That in mind, I’m very open to outside commentary here on how to resolve any differences in judgment. I’d be happy to post escrow with some neutral panel, etc.Ok, on to the feature presentation.Timeline RecapIt’s hard to understand this story without factoring the order in which things happened, in that many of these events had domino effects.(Note that some of these dates are +/- one day, as it wasn’t always obvious which timezone an email or article was sent/published in, and I only put effort into checking where I thought it really mattered.)June 23rd, 2018 - Twelve boys and their assistant soccer coach enter the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system.June 24th, 2018 - Vern Unsworth, a local British expat with deep experience exploring said cave system, is informed that the boys haven’t come out. He correctly recognizes that the water has likely risen early, and advises the government to urgently reach out to the British Cave Rescue Council (BCRC).June 25th, 2018 - Thai Navy SEALs arrive. They have no experience with cave diving (very different from open-water diving). The water is murky and rising, and they make little progress.June 27th, 2018 - Three members of the BCRC join the Thais.June 28th, 2018 - US military troops arrive, under a joint command of the USAF. They’re to run point on the operation, with the BCRC’s Richard Stanton acting as lead expert, and Narongsak Osatanakorn (the outgoing provincial governor) serving as political head.June 28th - July 1st, 2018 - Other international divers arrive to support the BCRC, but any rescue attempt is initially judged as too risky. Rain is falling hard, the water is rising, visibility is non-existent, and no one knows if the boys are still alive. But the Thai Navy says no. If they must, they’ll do it alone. The other divers decide they’d rather be the ones taking the risk. They at least have a chance.July 2nd, 2018 - The weather cooperates, and two BCRC divers manage to find the boys — alive! The problem is now how to get them out. The passage is long and twisty, the water is cold and rapid, and none of the boys know how to swim.July 4th, 2018 - This is a global story by now, and many have taken to wondering what they can do to help. Someone on Twitter thinks to ask Musk (who was helpful with Puerto Rico in 2017, and generally likes to contribute resources where he can).I suspect that the Thai govt has this under control, but I’m happy to help if there is a way to do so— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 4, 2018July 5th, 2018 - Tragedy. Saman Kunan, one of the Thai SEALs, perishes while delivering oxygen tanks, in part because of the temperature of the water.July 5th, 2018 - On the other side of the world, Musk, perhaps inspired by the Lengede Miracle, begins brainstorming on Twitter, while also reaching out to Thai fixers and other official intermediaries to see what he can offer. In parallel, he sends a team to Thailand, opens his wallet to other contractors (Singaporean surveyors mainly), and begins taking requests for any equipment that might be helpful (he ends up sending 10 Powerwalls, a set of underwater tools for widening the passage, and some high-grade surveying equipment to help those searching for a way to drill to the boys’ location).July 5th - July 9th, 2018 - As an outcome of his discussions with on-the-ground experts, Musk is convinced that a mini sub is his best Plan B offering. This is affirmed by BCRC head Richard Stanton, who provides Musk a list of specification requests and asks him to continue development, as he has doubts about Plan A working for the smallest boy (oxygen mask fit was a major concern). Musk is due in China in a few days, and has his engineers build the best thing they can for him to take with him (much faster than commercial shipping). Time is tight, but they come up with something plausible. It isn’t quite there on all Stanton’s specs, but no concern is raised about fit, and the safety concerns are balanced by the fact it’s a Plan B solution anyhow. Musk also brings an inflatable version shaped to the same dimensions to make doubly sure fit won’t be an issue. Lastly, he leaves orders for his team to prepare to send a smaller 48″ version if need be. [EDIT: Per the October court docs, the fit-check wasn’t inflatable. It was collapsible. There were, however, seven inflatable pods also sent.]July 8th, 2018 - The rescue team begins the mission that the USAF sold to the Thais on a prognosis of an “optimistic” 60-70% chance of success (with ~5 expected deaths). They have a tiny window of opportunity before monsoon season, and this is judged their best shot. Amazingly, four of the boys are out safely that night.July 9th, 2018 - Musk drops off the subs and tours the cave. He leaves acknowledging that the current efforts (which he’s been publicly applauding with enthusiasm) are working, and that the main sub probably won’t be used, but is at least there in case Plan A turns awry. Thankfully, Plan A continues to work, and four more boys come out.Just returned from Cave 3. Mini-sub is ready if needed. It is made of rocket parts & named Wild Boar after kids’ soccer team. Leaving here in case it may be useful in the future. Thailand is so beautiful. pic.twitter.com/EHNh8ydaTT— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 9, 2018July, 2018 - From the onset of his involvement, Musk is ripped on Twitter by various media figures, for a weird range of reasons. Some specifically criticize the sub, despite said critics having no personal knowledge of the cave, no experience cave-diving, limited awareness of his conversations with Stanton and others, and little sense of the other things Musk and his team were contributing. (I get into this in far more detail in the two pieces linked at the beginning. The important thing to grasp here is that this criticism is now beginning to get to Musk on an emotional level, as he and team are putting a lot into this. This compounds with his general feeling that many in the press are habitually unfair to him, which has taken a growing toll.This reaction has shaken my opinion of many people. We were asked to create a backup option & worked hard to do so. Checked with dive team many times to confirm it was worthwhile. Now it’s there for anyone who needs it in future. Something’s messed up if this is not a good thing.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2018July 10th, 2018 - Everyone in the cave is out, rescuers included. And not a moment too soon. As the last group is exiting, a major pump fails. One of many close calls. The closest comes with that smallest boy Stanton was concerned about. But diver Jason Mallison shepherds him out safely, closing out something that deserves the name of miracle.July 13th, 2018 - As the rescue camp thins out, CNN interviews Vern Unsworth. He’s asked to repeat something he said prior, this time on camera. (The following clip is from a Norwegian newspaper’s YouTube account. It’s hard to find the original elsewhere. The most viewed version crops out the part where the reporter clarifies that she’s asking Unsworth to repeat himself, which is important.)July 14th, 2018 - Zeynep Tufekci publishes an op-ed in the New York Times that’s highly critical of Musk. (I reviewed her arguments here. That rundown, together with this, cover a lot of the other criticisms laid against him too, including the furor resulting from the BBC’s framing of Osatanakorn’s “not practical for this mission” comments. There’s a very important bit of context there that most have overlooked.)July 15th, 2018 - A Twitter thread about Tufekci’s op-ed pulls in Musk, who leaves three responses. In one of them he refers to Unsworth as “pedo guy”. When challenged on that claim later that night, Musk responds with “[b]et ya a signed dollar it’s true”. He then deletes all four tweets some hours later.July 16th, 2018 - I publish my original piece.July 17th, 2018 - Musk retweets said piece with his apology. While this calls forth another wave of responses, the story mostly falls off the headlines within a few days thereafter.July 17th, 2018 - James Howard, a self-styled private investigator, sends two unsolicited emails to Musk’s staff, offering to check into Unsworth’s background, hinting at skeletons in the closet. Disclosed emails show that some of the staffers asked each other if anyone knew anything about him, but it seems no response was given at the time.August 6th, 2018 - By now Unsworth had received multiple offers for free legal counsel (something I argued in favor of in my original piece). On the 6th, Lin Wood (Unsworth’s new US lawyer) sends a letter to Musk’s residence, encouraging his counsel to reach out about a settlement. It’s unclear who receives it, how or whether Musk was ever personally made aware of it, or whether it was interpreted as a notice of intent or a shakedown letter. [EDIT: It’s clear from Musk’s deposition with Wood that he did interpret it as a shakedown letter.]August 15th, 2018 - Rumblings of a coming lawsuit grow. Jared Birchall, president of Musk’s home office, decides to contact that investigator. His CV looks good, and he has some references (which are never contacted). Birchall contracts him to research a specific set of questions.August 17th - August 27th, 2018 - Preliminary reports from Howard drip in, all of them quite damning towards Unsworth. Birchall communicates the gist of these to Musk.August 28th, 2018 - The below Twitter thread happens (which began with Musk arguing for an unrelated story correction). This is the first time since his apology that Musk says or insinuates anything publicly about Unsworth. Driven by his understanding of Howard’s reports, Musk challenges Olanoff to look into it more himself (this happens in a subsequent tweet, not the below one).You don’t think it’s strange he hasn’t sued me? He was offered free legal services. And you call yourself @yoda …— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 28, 2018August 28th, 2018 - Lin Wood responds to the above tweet.@elonmusk should check his mail before tweeting. pic.twitter.com/3c9QWtdp25— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) August 29, 2018(As an aside, Wood is a bit loose with facts here, which we’ll see more of later. The rescue was long over by the time of Musk’s tweet. Also, tweets don’t go to all your followers. A tiny fraction of those 22 million people would have seen any of those tweets on their feeds. While these discrepancies aren’t that consequential in themselves, I feel this kind of “convenient misstatement” is a systemic problem of which nearly all the parties in our story are guilty.)August 29th, 2018 - BuzzFeed News’ Ryan Mac sends an email to Musk looking for comment on Wood’s tweet. Musk gives an abrupt reply, over-harshly rebuking Mac for shoddy research, pointing to Mac mislabeling Unsworth as a diver (he’s a caver/spelunker who didn’t do any diving in the rescue). This led Mac to, uh, defend himself on that charge, which likely just increased the friction between them. (You can find the full exchange here, under Doc 60, Ex L.)August 30th, 2018 - Musk’s team receives a more in-depth report from Howard. He says there are still things to clarify, but he lists many claims as solid. As it happens, almost all the claims therein will turn out to be wrong, as was true of his prior reports. Howard took them for a ride. When Musk and company learned this is an open question, but the strong presumption (based on their testimony and what fits the evidence) is that it was some time later. [EDIT: From the latest docs, it looks like it took until about mid-September. While there were was at least one major early discrepancy that triggered some questions, the tone of the messages between Birchall and the investigator gradually increase in skepticism over the course of weeks.]August 30th, 2018 - Mac follows up again. Musk responds twice, marking the first email as Off The Record and the second as On Background. Between both, he makes an aggressive series of declarations about what kind of person he believes Unsworth is (based on what he understood from Howard’s reporting, which he’d read or was briefed on earlier that day). The thrust of the emails was “this is how awful this guy is, and you’re defending him when you should really be investigating him yourself, which makes you a bad guy”. [EDIT: One open question is how Musk came to the “child rapist” claim specifically. It seems like he understood from the earliest reports that Unsworth’s girlfriend was actually his wife, and that she’d been 18/19 when they got married, having met some 7 years prior. None of that is true, and “met” doesn’t necessarily imply any sexual relationship prior to the marriage. My read here is that Musk, still seeing red, took the most uncharitable interpretation — which is obviously inexcusable.]September 4th, 2018 - Mac replies to inform Musk that his request to keep his emails off the record was invalid, as Mac hadn’t given prior consent. Later that day he drops this article: In A New Email, Elon Musk Accused A Cave Rescuer Of Being A “Child Rapist” And Said He “Hopes” There's A Lawsuit. It seems clear from timing that Mac and team had spent the intervening days (which included a long weekend) writing this and checking with their own legal counsel, and that they opted against following up with Musk to ask clarifying questions or probe into his views until they were ready to inform him of their decision vis-à-vis his OTR request. Musk, as expected, takes none of this well.September 17th, 2018 - Lin files suit against Musk in California. (A separate suit was also filed in the UK for arbitrage purposes, but I’ve had a harder time finding quality information about it. If/as I’m able to learn more, I’ll add marked edits accordingly.)September, 2018 to September, 2019 - We’ve otherwise heard little about this case in the year or so since. While various court docs have trended briefly on Twitter, Monday’s disclosures were meatier and more sensational, which has naturally resulted in renewed interest.That timeline set, we’ll now zoom in on the most important particulars.The InstigatorsLet’s recall the opening words from CNN’s interview with Unsworth:“And tell me, we just talked about this before, what your thoughts on Elon Musk’s idea was.”Consider this request. Unsworth had said something earlier, presumably off camera, and the reporter wanted him to go back to it now that the cameras were rolling. Why?As you ponder that, note Unsworth’s own deposition testimony:Q. […] how much time by the way did you spend with the SpaceX engineer whose name you don’t remember?A. Very little.Q. A minute?A. Less than five minutes.Q. Did you have any discussion with him about what was going on inside the cave?A. No.Q. Did you have any discussion with him about the rescue sub?A. No.Q. What did you talk to him about?A. I can’t recall what about.Q. Okay. Other than [that…], did you have any other interactions with anyone else working with Mr. Musk at the rescue site or during the rescue operation?A. No.Q. And am I correct that you weren’t in any of the meetings with Mr. Musk or those working with him in which they discussed the cave’s conditions or the rescue?A. No. [I assume the answer was intended to be yes, and that the wording confused him. Otherwise a one-word answer would be odd here.]Q. And you were not in any meetings with Mr. Musk or those working with him when they were working on the rescue sub, were you?A. No.Q. Okay. The next thing you said to the CNN reporter was “it just had absolutely no chance of working,” and the “it” in that sentence is the rescue submarine, correct?A. Yes.Q. And before you sat down for the July 13th CNN interview, you had investigated whether the rescue sub would work, had you not?A. Could you rephrase — repeat the question, please?Q. Sure. Before you sat down for the CNN interview on July 13th, you had investigated whether Mr. Musk’s sub would work?A. What do you mean by “investigated”?Q. In my question I meant you gathered information to enable you to reach a conclusion as to whether it would work. Had you done that?A. Yes.Q. And you talked with people before you met with CNN to get their views as to whether Mr. Musk’s rescue sub would work, correct?A. No.Q. Did you talk with anybody?A. No.Q. Did you look at videos of the rescue sub before you met with CNN on July 13th?A. Yes.Q. In terms of gathering information sufficient to enable you to make a decision as to whether the rescue sub would have worked, what besides viewing a video did you do?A. I just based my opinion on what I saw in the video compared to the conditions that were occurring in the cave system.Q. And approximately how much time did you spend gathering information about the rescue sub and whether it would work or anything about it before you met with CNN?A. Not a great deal.Q. How much?A. Just the video.(These deposition extracts are available here under Doc 62, Ex 1.)So, Unsworth knew nothing about:Musk’s involvementMusk’s team’s involvement (beyond a short conversation he can’t remember with an engineer whose name he forgets that apparently wasn’t about anything relevant)Musk’s conversations with Stanton and others (who were the real subject-matter experts here)The sub itself (beyond whatever it was he observed in watching a short video)The planning that went into the sub’s designThis in mind, why did CNN judge him a fit person to answer questions about the sub or Musk? Remember, this wasn’t impromptu! CNN asked Unsworth to repeat himself for the camera, meaning there was intervening time they could have used to ask questions to establish his credentials here (or lack thereof).From my vantage point, it’s hard to see this decision as anything other than “controversy is good for ratings”. It didn’t inform. Nothing that Unsworth could have said about Musk would have informed. All it could do is incite.(If anyone can find footage of the full interview, I’d love to see it. I’ve looked and couldn’t find anything on YouTube or CNN’s web archive. Just the two versions of that one clip.)Anyway, if CNN was instigator number one, we then have Unsworth’s own eagerness to cast stones.Let’s take his interview comments line by line:He can stick his submarine where it hurts.The best-case interpretation here is that this was a callback to Unsworth’s prior conversation with the reporter. But why say it again on camera as your opening?! So weirdly and needlessly aggressive.It has absolutely no chance of working.Says the YouTube detective.He had no conception of what the cave passage was like.This would be impressive considering that Musk had people at the cave feeding him info. And Unsworth knew this! He talked to one of them! (Musk would have had obvious reasons to confirm this through other intermediaries anyway, but part of his rationale in sending his own engineers was to help answer questions like this.)The submarine, I believe, was about 5 foot 6 long, rigid.Off by half a foot. And there was a 48″ one also being fabricated.So it wouldn’t have gone around corners, around any obstacles.We have no reason to believe this. I get into this whole fit concern more here and here. I can’t say for certain that fit couldn’t have been an issue. But I can say that, so far as I can tell, no one who publicly raised concerns here ever presented any meaningful evidence. There was a single turn that did seem awfully tight, but Musk had sent appropriate tools for that very reason.It wouldn’t have made it the first fifty meters into the cave from the dive start point.I’ve so far found no evidence that would back up this statement. The most concerning turn was much farther into the cave. (That said, it seems Unsworth may have made more comments about this that aren’t in the trial docs published so far, so I guess we’ll see. But the contents of Stanton’s emails on the subject never raise this concern, and I’ve found no incidents of anyone else from the rescue/dive team suggesting anything similar.)Just a PR stunt.About that — let’s go back to his deposition:Q. […] Was there ever a point in time where you have felt that Mr. Musk was trying to claim credit where credit was not due in relation to the cave rescue?A. No.Q. Was there ever a point in time where in your mind you thought Mr. Musk’s motives for involving himself in the cave rescue had nothing to do with trying to rescue the kids, but were instead for some other purpose?A. No.Right.So, in sum, we have a guy who did some genuinely heroic things — who then decided to unload on someone he’d never met and knew little about, for reasons that (so far as we know) are obscure to all but the man himself.It’s hard to see why this shouldn’t merit a measure of condemnation. While we ought to be empathetic to the fact that Unsworth was exhausted and likely misinformed, those are mitigating factors, not exculpatory. It may make what he did less bad, but it doesn’t make it anything other than bad.Most of all though, I wonder why we wouldn’t apply some discounted form of this same empathy and mitigation to Musk himself?Musk was similarly exhausted.Neither were aware of the other’s role, and neither did much to learn what they didn’t know.Both made wildly negative judgments about each other on no meaningful evidence.Both had mitigating-but-not-exculpatory circumstances.Both have made unserious arguments to downplay what they did.This doesn’t make the cases equal. But it does make them comparable. Musk is guilty, sure. I’ve always felt and argued so. Pretty much everyone has. He’s had his trial by public opinion already, and it was a landslide. But judging one person of many in a brawl isn’t how you accomplish justice, nor is it how you decrease the odds of recurrence.As such, we’re going to leave the Musk/Unsworth thread for a bit, and pivot to the majority posture of the journalists involved. Boiling it down, we get something like “we bear no guilt here; Musk’s meltdown was a result of his character and choices, and wasn’t at all influenced by an environment we helped create”.Modern JournalismCompare these two excerpts (emphases my own):Elon Musk paid a private investigator more than $50,000 to search for compromising information on a British cave explorer that he called “a pedo guy” on Twitter last year […] the billionaire hoped to obtain compromising information that suggested Unsworth was a pedophile.and“There is some urgency to the situation,” Birchall wrote in an email on Aug. 27, 2018, to Howard, who claimed to have worked with MI5 and for billionaires including George Soros. “We believe there are planned attacks in the media and/or a lawsuit that are imminent. With that said, we aren’t looking to frame anyone.” In the email, Birchall, also included a list of questions he and Musk wanted answered.Now let’s complete the bolded quote:With that said, we aren’t looking to frame anyone. If there is definitely no smoking gun, then let’s get the information necessary to make that determination and it is what it is.”I’ll let you guess who wrote those excerpts, and why they were framed as they were (where the article opens with the negative, and the balancing quote is scalpelled and placed in paragraph six).Anyway, consider the difference between these two statements:The point of my investment is to prove someone guilty.The point of my investment is to find the truth.The difference is subtle, but not trivial. Framing shapes how readers interpret things. Any editor who cared about neutrality or accuracy would emphatically rule out any lede or headline close to #1. But that isn’t what most still-employed editors are focused on today. They’re largely paid to generate, promote, measure, and manage. The issue I’m describing is considered quaint by most. Who even has the time it takes to sit with these questions for every piece?[EDIT: The latest court docs confirm that Birchall offered a $10k bonus if the investigator found something damning. If this had been public knowledge at the time, I can see the argument for it justifying BuzzFeed’s framing. But it wasn’t.]Yes, Musk spent tens of thousands to find the truth. This isn’t an objectively unreasonable action, and that it ended disastrously is neither here nor there to the decision itself. Someone says “the guy threatening to sue you might be hiding something, and I can find out for sure”, and you say “huh, well go ahead and check, as we’d like to know either way”. I can also see the case for not doing this, but that has nothing to do with how I’d write about it. (I also just wouldn’t write about it. There’s no story here. Pre-trial opposition research in cases like this is so commonplace that it’s not worth even a blurb. Framing standard practices like they’re bombshells is just cheap sensationalism.)This is just one example. For the sake of length, I’m putting a bunch more into an appendix, which will also take a closer look at Mac’s decision to reject Musks’ off-the-record request, and how both Mac and Musk could have accomplished nobler ends in a less destructive way.For our purposes here, I’ll suggest the following:Journalism is increasingly a clickshare business. Editor-to-writer ratios, average time to publish, and budget per article are all plummeting. (The NYT is the cash king, and just look at what’s happened to editors there.)More specifically, there are also very few public editors left in journalism (whose job it is to police and investigate their outlet’s own coverage). The NYT let their last one go in 2017. It’s now difficult to impossible to get anyone there to listen to correction concerns. (For an immediate example, see my letter here, which drew no response.)There’s good business in antagonizing Musk. You’re guaranteed lots of clicks and tribal support. And most don’t even have to do much/any research! Just find the going headline, re-write a few paragraphs, then let news syndication services do the rest. Sure, you might be wrong, and the framing might be bad, and you might be reinforcing a flawed and misleading narrative — but when’s the last time anyone was actually punished for that? More media folks today get fired for old tweets than they do for current coverage.Musk has no obvious tools in terms of correcting faulty coverage. If he tweets about it, his critics say he’s whining. If he accepts it, that comes with collateral damage to his companies and employees and his own mental health.When you combine those dynamics, it’s not surprising that fair/neutral/detailed coverage on Musk or any of his companies is pretty tough to find.You may think I’m hyperbolic here. If so, I really do encourage you to check out the links in the appendix. This story is just one of many.Now, none of this exonerates Musk here. He’s certainly done things that deserve considerable critical coverage. But the idea that him being rich and influential should disqualify him from a weighted sentence is the kind of thinking we were supposed to throw in the dustbin 200 years ago. That he should be held to a significantly higher level of accountability than a guy off the street is inarguable. But that we should desire blood for his sins without considering the culpability of anyone else involved is genuinely dangerous.Without this shoddy journalism, Unsworth’s clip never gets aired, thus never drawing a response from Musk.Without this shoddy journalism, people understand Musk’s contributions in context, leaving him with nothing legitimate to complain about.Without this shoddy journalism, Musk is less on edge in general.Without our clicks, this shoddy journalism isn’t profitable, and therefore doesn’t exist.We’ve been ready (as we should be) to discuss what Musk has done wrong. Are we ready to talk about what we’ve done wrong?The Lawsuit ItselfI’m not a lawyer, and I don’t have a deep understanding of Californian juries, nor the nuances of the legal standards most likely to be included in their instructions. I’m not sure many outside of local experts do.That said, I can offer a few general comments here:One important question is whether or not Musk had a continuous belief in Unsworth’s proclivities. The jury will have to decide on Musk’s likely mindset in the gap between (paraphrasing) “shut up you big pedo” and “wait, this guy is actually a pedo!”.Musk’s argument is that his original comment was a mix of “I don’t like his look” (super subjective) to “old white male pensioner living in Thailand” (gross application of low % stereotype) to “Google says the province he lives in is a hotbed for child trafficking” (true), and that he decided to let his temper take him the rest of the way. While this was a very dumb and reckless and cruel thing to do, the question is whether he was honest in his apology as to this being more runaway anger than serious accusation.Getting even more granular, there were three distinct potentially-libelous moments.The original set of four tweets (mainly “pedo guy” + “bet ya a signed dollar”).The “strange that he hasn’t sued” tweet.The two emails to BuzzFeed.Taking those in reverse order:Libel isn’t the same slander. Libel requires publication of some form. I don’t know how you charge someone with libel when they went to lengths to say “I don’t want you to publish this”. [EDIT: See note at end. It seems like Musk’s team did try to leak these claims elsewhere.]In the case of 2, it will be on Wood to prove that this was a direct public callback to “pedo” and not a general “this guy is hiding something” implication. It will also hinge on whether Musk had reasonable cause to believe his investigator’s reports. (Though those two things are in tension.)1 comes down to how you parse the “bet ya a signed dollar” tweet, as it grounds the meaning of “pedo” to the most likely interpretation by the guy Musk was responding to (not what it may have meant to someone else in some other place at some other time).My handicaps here in mind, it seems likely to me that this last question is his real vulnerability.That said, one counter-argument would be that the first set of tweets was Twitter puffery, where a reasonable person would assume that Musk was just blowing hot air. Subjectively, this kinda fits with the responses I saw. I don’t know anyone who walked away wondering if Unsworth really was a pedophile. They just chalked it up to Musk’s temper. (Of course, I could be blinded by my social context. Perhaps those in other circles had a different take? I’m sure Unsworth’s team will try to find and number said people.)Ultimately, it’s a tough case. I could see it going either way based on whichever lawyer is more persuasive. But, personally, I’m much less interested in the binary outcome than I am the underlying questions of justice — which trial mechanisms aren’t well-designed to answer.Rival Conceptions of JusticeQuoting from another trial doc (Doc 62, Ex 12), here’s a comment from an email that Unsworth sent to an ABC News reporter:Better get his BIG cheque book out.Now, there’s nothing nefarious in looking forward to getting paid. People who file libel suits reasonably expect to see something for their pain, which one imagines is amplified when the defendant is a billionaire. But this is a data point, and it’s hard to argue that Unsworth’s real interest now is Musk clearing the record (seeing as the latter’s deposition has already effectively done that). This is mostly about money at this stage, and about Unsworth’s conception of justice.By what we can understand of Unsworth’s logic from his interviews and legal filings, he’s the good guy and Musk is the bad guy, so BIG money should transfer accordingly. And Wood is happy to sell this image.Example (from Doc 63, Exh. 9)Prior to the cave rescue, [Unsworth] had no previous experience with the media. When interviewed by CNN, he was expecting to be asked about the rescue and was not at all expecting to be asked questions about [Musk] or his tube. [Unsworth’s] response was spontaneous, but well-justified. He honestly spoke his mind and he had no intention of denigrating [Musk], simply a desire to give a frank answer to the question period.So, about this:LMAOI’ll grant that media was new to him, but he’d already done a number of interviews by this point. After your first few you get the idea.He wasn’t expecting to be asked a question THAT HE’D ALREADY GIVEN AN ANSWER TO EARLIER TO THE SAME REPORTER?!Spontaneous second takes. Got it.Well-justified???“I didn’t meant to denigrate you when I questioned your competency and said you’d pulled a PR stunt” must be the new “no offense, but”.It’s exceedingly difficult to take this seriously. Yes, Unsworth is the net victim here. But he did throw the first punch — an ugly and undeserved one — and nothing we can say about either him or Musk in terms of comparative judgment is meaningful if we leave that out. You can be a victim without being an innocent victim. Unsworth is one, not the other.But does his own level of guilt mean he shouldn’t get anything, or that Musk should get off free?My suggestion in the original writeup (emphasis new):Working under the assumption that Unsworth is innocent of the charge, he should sue for libel. If he can’t afford to, he should be helped. Or Musk should reach out proactively to donate to a charity of Unsworth’s choice to begin his amends.Of course, that’s behind us now. Either Musk will be found innocent and Unsworth will get nothing, or Musk will be found guilty, which will leave the jury with hard questions concerning compensatory (restoring Unsworth) and punitive (punishing Musk) awards.In the first case, the deposition extracts suggested that Unsworth has experienced little-to-no financial or social damages. He couldn’t point to any examples of closed doors or changed perceptions. He’s still widely viewed as a hero. He even got a well-deserved MBE (prestigious British honor) for his contributions.That said, general (psychological) damages are thornier. There’s a certain anxiety that comes with not knowing how libelous (or libelous-ish) claims will be received, which can be non-trivial in terms of net effect on mental health. I know I was concerned for a few days when I was getting dragged for what I wrote on this subject. I make my living as a writer. If any of my clients were to take those criticisms seriously, I’d be looking for a new line of work. Now, obviously the perception of a being a possible pedophile is far, far more stigmatic. But it isn’t obvious that anyone of consequence believed Musk’s claims, just as none of my clients were overly concerned by the unmoored ravings of Angry Twitter. Even so, I can see a strong case for reasonable compensation here for Unsworth. Enough to cover a few very nice vacations with his wife, and maybe some counselling to deal with any residual damage.As for punitive damages, it’s hard to see the case for any — not because Musk should get off free, but because in California all punitive damages are awarded to the plaintiff (less legal fees). Why should Unsworth or Wood get rich off this? You suckerpunch a guy (however hard) in a sensitive spot, and he hits back with reckless force. It’s one thing to ask for him to cover your medical bills, and to demand anger management classes or whatever. But to be a substantial beneficiary because the dude you punched was rich and hot-tempered? That’s a horrible sort of precedent.If Unsworth loses, I would challenge Elon to make a significant donation to a Thai charity fighting child trafficking. A non-trivial fine (voluntary or not) for his behavior feels both appropriate and necessary. But if Unsworth wins, I can only hope that the jury will be mindful of what they’re rewarding and why (or that Unsworth will own his part and donate most of the money, which I suppose would be equally good depending on the level of damages).What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?Some obvious morals here:Never entertain or broadcast uncharitable views of anyone without hard evidence (which you should always share for validation).Always get (and verify) the receipts before forming judgment. This is especially true when the findings are awfully convenient and/or fit with pre-existing narratives/suspicions.If you violate the above rules, you probably shouldn’t be shocked when your target gets very angry with you, and if consequences follow.If you’re rich, you should do yoga and attending regular counselling. You can afford it, and you can’t as easily afford not to do it.Always do above-and-beyond diligence when vetting a PI. If you don’t, any liability is on you.Always make sure that journalists consent to OTR before you start talking.Never blindly trust that reporters want the same things as you, or that their specific constraints are amenable with researching and communicating complex truths. Always make sure.Now, if that last one feels like a cheap shot, let me pose a question:If someone were to read 10 articles (from big-brand publishers) on this story, how would they rate the journalists who wrote them in terms of giving a full and measured and contextual account?To reiterate, I’m happy to put put money to mouth and pay $50 for any example that meets those criteria. I’ve read a lot on this topic, and I think I’ve found exactly one to praise (this one from Daniel Cooper, which though I’d quibble with it in places, did nicely showcase those three qualities).I tend to think that modern journalism models are largely at fault here. That I write these things in my free time is both disadvantage and advantage. While it’s always better to be paid, once you get paid you subject yourself to a model, most of which are bad. Few that are being paid for four hours to get a story done will spend eight, and some stories take a multiple of that. I’m hundreds of hours into this one, and I’m skeptical that anyone could do justice here in less than a full week or two. There’s just too much information to consume before you can have any weighty conclusions.UPDATES/EDITS:Returned here the morning of October 8th to leave some edits based on the latest round of court docs (this time from Unsworth’s side). The big reveals:Birchall had offered a bounty for incriminating info. (Nothing really notable about opposition research in itself. But admittedly a pretty bad look to offer more for negative results.)Birchall had tried to work with the investigator to leak a set of negative claims to UK tabloids. (The idea was ostensibly to get them to investigate and replicate their findings — but still an ugly tactic that isn’t going to sit well with a potential jury. And in the event that they expected that any of the outlets would print the claims on background alone, that hints at an even darker problem.)Musk’s team had begun pushback on Osotanakorn’s statements before the rescue had finished. (This feels benign to me. The negative press was immediate, and I can see why PR folks would want to jump on it through private channels. While the timing seems bad optically, it’s not like this happening in parallel was distracting from the rescue.)Musk seems to have gone beyond his investigator’s findings in his “summary” to BuzzFeed. This is harder to adjudicate, and I’d prefer to review the transcripts more thoroughly this weekend before trying to have a firm opinion here. Will circle back. But even the best reading here isn’t good.There were other minor details that came out in the deposition extracts that will require update/corrections/clarifications across previous pieces, which I hope to get to this weekend:The fit-check sub was collapsible, not inflatable. There was a separate set of inflatable subs (purpose unclear).Not clear anymore if there was a difference between the “pressure pod” and the mini-sub. (Lots to parse in the Doc 81, Ex 57 group chat. A bunch of options were discussed, and it’s not always clear which is which. Will need more time to review and sort out. On the whole though, the chat shows a lot of bright people working hard and fast on generating feasible/high-impact solutions.)More detail about the interactions between Musk and the various divers (seems his main contact was Ben Reymenants, one of the Belgian support divers). Plus more from the unredacted string with Stanton.