On August 24, 27, and 30, Musk received separate written reports stating that Unsworth met Tik when she was at least 18 or 19 years old (and married her some years after that)–but less than 8 hours after getting the last such report, Musk nonetheless told the BuzzFeed reporter that Unsworth is a child rapist who married a 12-year-old child bride.
After he doubled and tripled down on Twitter on the accusation known to describe a pedophile (betting it was true and suggesting truth by Unsworth’s failure to sue(SF 2-3, 7-8)), Musk then paid at least $52,000 and offered an incentive bonus of $10,000 to a convicted felon with whom he had no prior relationship to prove whether Unsworth was “another Jeffrey Epstein.”(SF 95). He obtained confidential information on Unsworth’s contacts with his UK legal counsel and orchestrated a malicious, false, and anonymous leak campaign in the UK and Australian press. When that failed, he took matters into his own hands by sending emails to an adversarial reporter,in response to a bona fide request for comment,which stated as a matter of fact false accusations that Unsworth was a child rapist with a 12-year-old child bride. Musk contends that the republication of his email accusations was not reasonably foreseeable despite the undisputed facts that he emailed them to a reporter with whom he had no historical relationship, calling the reporter a “*advertiser censored**ing *advertiser censored**hole” in the first sentence, has admitted that he wanted the information published whether true or false, and told the reporter that publication is “up to you.” The most accurate description to this defense is set forth by adopting Musk’s description of his conduct:
I didn’t expect Buzzfeed to publish an off the record email. My intent was to have them investigate and come to their own conclusions, not publish my email directly. Still, I’m a *advertiser censored**ing idiot.”
(SF 65 (emphasis added)).