What's the full story behind Elon Musk's involvement with the Thai cave rescue effort?

As is often the case, there’s a nuanced story with multiple morals here — one that most news outlets have, for whatever reasons, failed to tell.

Let’s start with the common narrative, which I think is fairly represented in this tweet (chosen randomly among hundreds like it):

Very disappointed in @elonmusk during this Thai episode. Jumped on a PR opportunity, throws his expensive toy out the pram when told it *so obviously* wouldn’t work and now disrespecting heroes involved who clearly did a super human feat in rescuing boys.

— rich fitzmaurice (@FitzmauriceRich) July 16, 2018

We have a few inter-related claims here:

1. That Musk’s involvement was primarily about PR.
2. That his “expensive toy” was of no value to rescue efforts.
3. That he was disrespectful of rescuers in the plural.

And then, of course, we have Musk’s already-infamous “pedo guy” dig.

We’ll take each of those in turn, using context to determine how fair or unfair each claim might be.

#1: The massive PR stunt.

This criticism came in three somewhat contradictory flavors. Some blamed Musk for making too much of his efforts, some blamed him for not making a different contribution, and some blamed him for not solving totally unrelated problems.

To give a few representative examples:

Unless there's an opportunity for him to showoff the cool technologies SpaceX can build - like the "kid-sized" submarine for cave rescue - I doubt he'll do anything about the kids at the border 😔

— Vivianne Castillo (@vcastillo630) July 8, 2018

So an engineer hasn’t used his free time to solve a border-control problem that’s outlasted every elected politician and subject-matter expert that’s ever been paid to figure it out? Time for the tar and feathers, I guess.

More to the point though, one does wonder why Musk was ever vocal about this particular issue in the first place?

Well, as it turns out, we know exactly why.

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, 2018

Note the date. The boys went missing on June 23rd. It had been a national news issue for well over a week at that point — i.e., just long enough for engineering types to begin wondering if perhaps they could do something to help.

As for why Musk thought that open conversations on Twitter were a positive means to that end?

It’s open so that others who are closer to the problem can consider this as one possible solution

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2018

But surely he could do more than just facilitate dialogue on social media?

So, in sum, a wealthy problem-solver with a long history of responding to charity requests on Twitter is asked to see what he can do to help. He agrees, opens dialogue for ideas, takes them to the on-the-ground experts for feedback, then sends some of his best engineers to work pro bono on practical mechanics.

And this is a bad thing…?

#2: The expensive toy.

From Musk’s first announcement that his team was working on a miniature submarine to help the divers, Twitter was quick to criticize.

I studied engineering. Anyone who's known to have a basic knowledge of geography and engineering know that Elon Musk's "Escape Pod Submarine" is not helpful at this present situation. Still he played along, trying to seek global attention. @elonmusk you're wrong! #ThaiCaveResue

— Vishnu Narayanan (@NarayananVI) July 10, 2018

Of course, one could point out that SpaceX and Boring Co. engineers had also “studied engineering” at some point in their careers — being that many of them are literal rocket scientists and all (not to mention their knowledge advantage re: the specific cave system in question). But why let that obvious truth get in the way of cheap criticism for some sweet, sweet internet karma?

Sadder yet, this skepticism wasn’t limited to internet trolls.

The former Thai provincial governor (described inaccurately as “rescue chief”) is not the subject matter expert. That would be Dick Stanton, who co-led the dive rescue team. This is our direct correspondence: pic.twitter.com/dmC9l3jiZR

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 10, 2018

Note that last sentence:

If it isn’t needed or won’t help, that would be great to know. Otherwise, it would be very helpful to have as much design direction as possible.

Clearly the words of an egomaniac dedicated to inserting himself into a process where he was neither invited nor desired.

Anyway, to expand a bit more on the details here:

• Narongsak Osotthanakorn, the provincial governor quoted by BBC, went on to say: “Even though their equipment is technologically sophisticated, it doesn't fit with our mission to go in the cave.” In other words, the problem wasn’t that the sub was useless. It was that they’d already come up with an alternate plan before the sub arrived. (Note: Narongsak was actually transitioning out as governor. He just stayed on as the political head of the rescue team until it was completed.)
• From the description of the rescue efforts (which had to be expedited because of a lull in the rain before the cave flooded again), the sub still could have been useful. At the very least, it could have replaced the need for the stretcher and pulley system used in the more open areas. It just arrived too late to make it into the planning process.
• Some suggested that the length of the sub might have kept it from navigating some of the cave’s tight corners. But you know who else thought of this? Musk and his engineers. Hence why they sent an inflatable version built to the same dimensions to test it without the risk of blocking the passage.
• You know who was excited about the sub? The Thai Navy. Musk even loaned out his engineers to teach them how to use it for future missions.

Glad to hear that. Engineering team also getting feedback from the British dive team on how to improve the design for future applications.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2018

So, again, we have a wealth of condemnation and ridicule directed at Musk for what exactly? For collaborating with the dive team to come up with something that, at worst, would add to their toolbox for other rescue missions?

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, 2018

Something’s messed up indeed.

#3: Disrespecting the heroes.

As everyone knows, Musk’s tweet history is littered with examples of him taking credit at the expense of those actually “in the arena”.

Thanks, but we’ve not done anything useful yet. It is all other people.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2018

Ok, so maybe not. But what about all those nasty things he said about the divers? You know, the ones he couldn’t speak well of on account of his seething bitterness and jealousy?

Extremely talented dive team. Makes sense given monsoon. Godspeed. https://t.co/t5XRo3gTxK

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2018

He also went out of his way to give three separate shout-outs to the pump and generator teams — as self-obsessed types do, I guess.

#4: The final straw.

Thus far, Musk has come out pretty well. But that’s about to get complicated.

To set context, Vern Unsworth is a retired British expat who’s been living in Chiang Rai. And it so happens that he’d been exploring the particular cave system where the boys went missing for some six years prior. This let him predict with fairly close accuracy where the lost party would be found. He was also instrumental in bringing in the overseas cave diving experts.

This past Friday, after the rescue was complete and those involved were shifting into debrief mode, Unsworth gave an interview, a clip of which went viral.

Cave rescuer on Musk: “It was a PR stunt. It had no chance of working.” pic.twitter.com/uPgRMQLkRx

— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) July 13, 2018

CNN: “We just talked about this before, what your thoughts on Elon Musk’s idea was.”

Unsworth: “He can stick his submarine where it hurts. It had absolutely no chance of working. He had no conception of what the cave passage was like. The submarine, I believe, was about 5 foot 6 long, rigid. So it wouldn’t have gone around corners, around any obstacles. It wouldn’t have made it the first fifty meters into the cave from the dive start point. Just a PR stunt.”

As to why Unsworth chose to throw scorn at Musk’s motives, only he can say. Perhaps he was simply riding the false narrative supported by so many others.

All we do know is what he said — which was, at best, rather uncharitable.

Musk didn’t take it well.

Yikes.

Now, in Musk’s (very) limited defense, the pedophile accusation wasn’t quite random. While Thailand has a reputation for sex tourism in general (particularly marketed towards single European pensioners), Chiang Rai itself is a known hot-spot for “sex trafficking and child prostitution”.

But does this trivia make it likely that Unsworth himself ever indulged in the local trade? Of course not. Unless Musk had some private information, it seems that he was seeing red and just grabbed at a convenient stereotype.

Gross as that tactic is, it suggests a deeper question: what drove a well-respected public figure to make such an extraordinarily negative claim?

Without attempting to exonerate him, I think that’s worth getting into briefly.

Musk & The Criticism Machine

For all Donald Trump’s complaints about the “fake news” media conspiracies against him, Elon Musk has by far the more legitimate claim. Apart from Obama and Clinton, I’m not sure any other public figure has been the victim of such a relentless wave of vicious, unfounded criticism in the social media era.

The tweets in the early sections barely do it justice. While I’m no blinders-wearing fanboy, I read a fair amount of articles about Musk and his companies. I think what they do is important and generally worthy of regular coverage. But what they don’t deserve is the tone of their regular coverage.

This deep-dive gives the sense: Elon Musk vs. Short sellers. In a nutshell, a non-trivial group of people (in number, funds, and collective influence) have been crusading against Musk’s success for a long, long time. The net result is that it’s weirdly difficult to get a balanced view of the man and his work. Most pieces are written by either uncritical supporters or those eager to feed the short/bear narrative (for whatever personal motivations).

While there are exceptions to the rule, the average piece looks something like this: Just How Many Dimensions of Chess Is Elon Musk Playing?

To save you the read (and to prevent them from gaining from your click), I’ll sum up their thesis: Elon Musk called Unsworth a pedophile to distract the world from the recent revelations that he’s made public donations to the GOP.

Well, about that:

• Those donations were small (< $40,000) in relative terms.
• He gives often and in moderate amounts to both sides.
• These amounts are dwarfed by his donations to issue-based causes (like his recent $6m give to a climate change fund).
• His political donations have never been a secret (being publicly reported). He’s discussed them openly.

Being honest, giving token amounts to various political groups is the cost of doing business. This often includes giving to those you disagree with ideologically. I’m resolutely against the current administration (and many GOP senators), but I’d do the same in his shoes. Most would, with clean consciences.

So why write an article about it as if it were news? I’ll leave that to the reader to ponder.

This kind of sustained siege against one’s character and motives has a predictable effect on people (remember Obama’s before/after photos?), especially when the victim sees few journalists interested in stepping in to tell the full story in a way that might slow the deluge.

As per a recent interview with Bloomberg, Musk is aware that this is making him prickly.

I never launched an attack on anyone who did not attack me first. So the question is: If somebody attacks you on Twitter, should you say nothing? Probably the answer in some cases is yes, I should say nothing. In fact, most of the time I do say nothing. I should probably say nothing more often.

I have made the mistaken assumption—and I will attempt to be better at this—of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season. And that is my mistake. I will correct it.

He may yet correct it. And perhaps his failing this week will encourage him to redouble his efforts. Personally, I hope he hires someone to run better PR for him. Instead of the fact-checking service he proposed last month, perhaps he just needs a contractor to deconstruct stories about him and his companies on his behalf.

(While I see why Musk often responds himself, I think some remove would be advantageous for him. Not only would it add a layer of objectivity, it would allow the other to highlight Musk’s positives in ways he could never do himself with any propriety. For example, did you know that he made two separate commitments to help the people of Flint while this other narrative was going on? Or that he donated a batch of RadioFlyer Teslas to children’s hospitals across Europe? I’m guessing you didn’t, and I’m guessing I know why.)

Final Thoughts

Musk’s PR needs aside, I think we’re right to condemn him for words to Unsworth (a provoked but disproportionate response). 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.

That notwithstanding, I have a hard time identifying with the cries of villainy. Musk made a terrible judgment call, sure. But to over-focus on that is to excuse ourselves at the same time. The waves of shoddy journalism exacerbating his behavior are coming from somewhere, supported by many a someone’s clicks. And as the old saw goes, no raindrop likes to see itself as responsible for the flood.

Overall, I think what Musk wants most is fairness. That doesn’t strike me as unreasonable. There’s a balance point between hero-worship and demonization, and we ought to do a better job of demanding that our press aim for it.

EDIT: SEP 6TH

Given how widely this post has been distributed, it felt inappropriate to make unmarked edits. Though the edit log is open for public review, it would be a bad look. As such, a few open notes instead.

• Back in July, I fixed a broken link about sex tourism in Chiang Rai. I also corrected a capitalization typo in a linked article headline (my original mistake). See edit log.
• I’ve just now added a transcript of Unsworth’s interview snippet, as requested. This is for the benefit of those who can’t get the video to play. I’ve also cleaned up one bullet point that had wonky grammar.
• It turns out I underestimated the coverage of the Musk-Flint story. As per Buzzsumo, that story actually saw significant traction on Facebook (which I’m not on, and was unaware of). Interestingly, if you compare that story with this one, more readers shared the positive story, but more journalists wrote about the negative one.
• If given a redo, I would have replaced “vicious” above with “bad faith”. Vicious certainly fits some critics (especially on social media), but isn’t a fair description of the average. That was bad judgment on my part.
• Some have argued that my “in his (very) limited defense” line can be read as defending Musk for the slur itself. I find this ludicrous, as the immediately following lines made my meaning exceptionally clear. My point was that Musk didn’t employ a random slur. That said, I’ve gone back and forth since as far as which behaviour is actually worse (random use of slurs vs. application of stereotype). As such, I probably should have scrapped the line altogether.
• I otherwise stand by the original. I suppose the argument that I was light on certain examples isn’t unreasonable. That said, the piece was already 3,000 words long. I also feel like those making said criticism didn’t do much (or anything) to deal with the examples I did give. But just to entertain said idea, my follow-up is going to be much more expansive.

EDIT: June, 2019

I forgot to link this here: Jeremy Arnold's answer to What did the media get right/wrong re: Jeremy Arnold’s post about Elon Musk and the Thai cave rescue effort?

It’s an expansive sequel that breaks down and responds the press coverage of the above answer.

Couple of answers here are almost there except Jeremy’s which is basically defending Musk as this poor guy who tried to help and got slammed with a sprinkle of light condemnation for some cred. It left out one very important event. And it makes it more curious given the very professional lengths he went to paint the picture. And even more curious is that Musk referred to Jeremy’s post as an “Intelligent and thoughtful piece.” Hmmm… a post on Quora?! I smell a rat. And it’s mostly just a post on how mean people are. A Twitter critique. Please. I could pen an article and copy/paste 10,000 tweets from Musk Sychophants who agreed Unsworth was a pedo. What does that prove either way? Nothing except there’s a lot of nobs in the world. Anyway on with what happened…

Keeping it simple with events mixed with reasonable assumptions.

First. Musk has a “knight in shining armour” complex. Nothing wrong with that. In extreme cases like his it is accompanied by a large ego. No big deal (if it doesn’t get in the way of saving lives), most ultra successful people are like this, but it has context.

Prequel.

Vern Unworth knows the caves like no one else. He’s mapped them. Has decades of caving experience. He knows EVERY passage. Every diameter. He literally points the rescuers to where the boys are and says you need to get “these” guys in. He is the mastermind. Without him (and others) the boys would be dead.

The events:

1. Musk hears about the rescue. His ears prick up and he’s away. Great stuff. Good on him.
2. He somehow gets a line to a diver(s). Now you are in a tense situation and some innovative billionaire offers some crazy solution so you think “nothing lost here and we’re desperate, go for it dude!”
3. He brings the sub to the site. Impressive in the timeframe. But it’s unbelievably tense — the first rescue has occurred and by now they’ve all but sussed it out.
4. The EXPERTS look at the sub, talk about it and the official then tells Musk, “thanks for the offer but it’s not what we need and be on your way because we’ve got lives to save and this is now a distraction.” This is important. If you think the official acted alone you’d be delusional. There would be experts everywhere. They’d been planning the rescue for a week or so. Rehearsals. Meticulous planning. It was working. The sub could only bring out one at a time. It might not even fit through the narrow passages. The boys would have to be able to test it too. Claustrophobia? Air systems? It would have to be tested. Etc. etc. — at the time it was preposterous to even consider it. Not Musk’s fault; he had a crack, but it wasn’t needed, this was a different time than when Stanton suggested he have a go, and the distraction definitely wasn’t welcome. And Unsworth would definitely have been one of the experts consulted. You know, the guy who knows every inch of the cave. In fact it’s probably reasonable to assume that he might have been one of the main guys who would have said, “na, no chance.”
5. Now there’s one thing here we don’t know. What was the mood like at the site? Did Musk waltz in and the team wasn’t happy with the intrusion and there was tension? Because it would have been a bit of a circus all round. Did Musk react and argue when being told to leave? Who knows. Perhaps it might in some way explain his bitey tweet at the official?
6. Now here’s where the shit starts, but many gloss over this important point and think it has no bearing. Bullshit. Musk jumps on Twitter because to him he has been humiliated. He’s frantically built the sub, taken a team over, gone to the caves and been turned away. He jumps on and has a dig at the official saying he’s not an expert, and his title is wrong, and then proceeds to copy tweets that only state “yeah dude, it could be useful.” See point 2. So let’s sit back and look what Musk did. He effectively tried to discredit a team member and create conflict between a team in the middle of a crisis to make it look like he’s been wronged. Not cool. Not cool at all. And when they find out that team will hit you like a ton of bricks. You better believe it.
7. And why did he send the tweet anyway? What was he trying to prove? That he was wrong in being turned away? That the sub would have had a better outcome? He wasn’t wronged in being turned away and the outcome would not have been better. What purpose did the tweet serve? The boys had been saved dude. And even then he was doubling down, saying that he’s going to go back to the cave and “prove” it would be work! I’ll fix those bastards! Oh, umm, “Hey great effort team!” Hmmm, see some classic behaviours happening here people? Let it go man. It doesn’t matter.

Now from here I am tipping that the rescue team has got wind of this and thought “what a sanctimonious little prick.” Trying to discredit us and make it all about him. Why didn’t he just walk away and go “glad I could try and help.” AND THAT’S IT. But no. These people, the overloaded knights in shining armour cannot handle when their offers get knocked back. Their ego is dented so they start dissing anyone who rejected them. Sounding like a certain POTUS we know?

So when Unsworth, who no doubt has had to deal with all sorts of crazy shit for weeks — probably hardly any sleep and doesn’t suffer fools — gets asked what did he think of Musk’s idea he said what he said. Most of us in that situation would have probably done the same. OK, maybe he was a bit harsh. He should have offered some lube… Although it was apparently a tiny sub designed to fit in small crevices… jokes aside, if you’re still going “Oh, Musk’s tweet had nothing to do with Unsworth’s comments,” then offer an explanation, because the only ones I’ve seen are clutching at straws. “He was riding the anti-Musk narrative.” What?! “He was jealous of Stanton.” Hahaha. So he wouldn’t have seen Musk’s divisive tweet, but he saw Stanton’s? Please. So come on. Really, why would Unsworth be so salty? He’s not just going to come out at random and say that. And it’s not because he was riding the narrative. That’s absurd. He wouldn’t have given a shit about the narrative.

And then of course Musk did what all good narcissistic egomaniacs do — he lost his shit and called him a pedo and a nobody (I’m seeing a “nobody” trend). Sorry? The guy who knows every inch of the caves. And the guy has a daughter dude and you’ve plastered it all over the internet to your 20 million followers! Many of who are going “yeah he’s a pedo alright, you go Elon, our hero.” No people, Unsworth was a hero, Musk lucked out this time.

Look I didn’t have an opinion of Musk either way. I thought he was an innovator and at first did a good thing. But looking at it from an objective point of view and seeing the events unfold he is an ass and an egomaniac.

In summary there only needs to be 2 key questions that warrant intelligent, un-biased answers. Everything else is by-play and a distraction:

1. Why did Musk feel the need to tweet about the officials title and declare he wasn’t the “expert”?
2. Why was Unsworth so salty?

Be interested in any logical and intelligent conclusions.

Heavily EDITED this to clarify.

Elon was asked to help.

He said he would do so if asked, but assumed Thai officials knew what they were doing.

Leader of the dive team could not any stone lay unturned, so he accepted the offer for help.

Elon could (and would) not say no. Leader of the dive team could not tell Elon to stop. Elon asked clearly, in his email, about whether his mini-sub would be useful. The answer was yes.

The guy who knew the cave system, Unsworth, for some reason decided that the sub was useless (too big to fit through the cave system). Maybe because Unsworth knew better than the leader of the dive team (Unsworth after all knew the system well). Maybe the leader of the dive team felt he could use the minisub for SOMETHING. Maybe the leader of the dive team felt like he had to let Musk do something, since it would look bad to not use Musk when Musk was “available”. But then it would be better to say the minisub was bad and that Musk should build something else. So this looks weird.

Unsworths response, that minisub is useless: Maybe true or maybe based on all the anti-Musk stories that are “cool” in media today. If true, then leader of dive team lied to Musk. Most probable is that minisub works but just barely - no matter how good the minisub is, it’s obviously very hard to be 100% sure if it will fit at all places.

The “Elon Musk is the Messiah” angle has been strong for soooo long (I’ve used it a few times myself) and Musk is now so successful that his underdog position of the past has been totally forgotten. So 1. the huge amount of money invested in shorting Tesla (more than a BILLION dollars to be lost if Tesla goes up) and 2. the media’s need for new angles (build up then tear down) together generates a flurry of anti-Musk articles nowadays.

The sad part is that Elon was winning, and then he threw an unnecessary insult on top of his argument. A classic moment of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

I think Jeremy Arnold’s answer explains Musk’s actions during the Thai rescue mission well eventhough I disagree with the politcal part of his answer.

But

Media and everyone seems to be defending the British diver depicting him as the victim of Musk's critism. But Musk could have gotten pissed off equally when being told to "stick his submarine where it hurts" and just doing “a PR stunt” and could have considered a legal action against him too.

But he didn’t.

Everyone here is talking about Musk and how he called the diver a “pedo guy” but it seems no one notices that Unsworth actually attacked Musk first.

Calling someone a pedo guy is bad and Musk should have used different words and maybe not tweet when angry, but I understand his anger. Imagine trying to help and sending your people to the place of action and some British guy tells you to “shove your submarine up your ass”. I think many people would get really angry.

Both men should have better thought about the words they used but don’t try to defend the British diver. He’s not the victim. He has his part on the whole “pedo guy-thing” and should apologize too.

There are a lot of conjectures on the sequence of events in some post attacking Elon, including what dive teams were supposedly thinking against him. Only Unsworth and the former Thai governor were asked by the media and responded to question about Elon’s submarine being unhelpful. The actual first tweet that created controversy was what appeared to be Elon downplaying the role of the former governor who said the submarine is impractical. He was trying to point out that he was dealing with Stanton, the supposed cave rescue expert. Maybe he had a poor choice of word and appeared to be dissing the former governor. But if you read the actual tweet it is not a clear insult and is open to interpretation, far from his tweet in anger to Unsworth in response to being told to shove his submarine up his rear.

Jeremy’s answer listed the facts to set the record straight because there were a lot of angry comments based on misinformation of events surrounding Elon’s attempt to help.

The news link below was from a report at a time when there were a lot of uncertainties about the rescue, and they reported Stanton as being the first volunteer there and that he is an awarded expert in rescue. So it is understandable for Elon to defend himself and claim he was dealing with the expert who would know better if the submarine is practical or not for use in the cave. The former governor is not a cave rescue expert but Elon could have chosen a better word than to sound dismissive as the guy is still the chief rescue officer coordinating the effort even if he is not a cave rescue expert.

Cave rescue for Thai soccer team has no easy solution | CBC News

No excuse for the pedo comment and there’s a reason we have libel law. But some are commenting out of anger just like Elon did and their comment shows as they twist and extend the fact that is not established to paint a more negative picture of Elon in the preceding event prior to his heated and libelous exchange with Unsworth.

On people dissing that the submarine would not have fit. If you follow Elon’s tweet he recognized that there are narrow spot as he was shown the map and is aware of the dimensions and limitations. It might not be practical for the plan they were going with but they did use stretcher which is about the same size. The submarine is small. They’ve used pulley in drop zone for the stretcher which could also be used on the submarine. The submarine was meant to be used because of fear that some of the kids might be too weak to use scuba gear and swim.

Unsworth was clearly pissed as the press pressed him on what he thought of Elon’s “useless” submarine and how Elon got kicked out for supposedly being a bother. The former is still disputed and the latter is being used to suggest he was in the way hampering the rescue effort. That was not the case. But the way questions were being asked to Unsworth makes it seems like Elon is stealing their spotlight and parachuting in with a useless submarine.

Is Elon a narcissist? A narcissist only cares about himself. He would not have donated to charities like Sierra Club and sacrificed his fortune to risk it at Tesla and other clean energy company. He is already rich and did not need to take on the oil companies who have billions in profit that can be used to ruined him. What Elon is might be sensitivity to being criticized or being short tempered on what he deem is unfair criticism. This might have to do with him being bullied as a kid. Elon Musk turns 47 today — here's the incredible story of how he went from getting bullied in school to the most interesting man in tech

Edited: to expand on some points and respond to Elon being a narcissist,

I will keep it short. I think that none of this would have if this was not said “He can stick it where it hurts.” This is nice way of saying a nasty thing that refers to something profane. So this guy started it and Musk finished it. I think the billionaire has enough money to check out Unsworth. It sounded like Musk found out something and it was okay to challenge Unsworth. He said he would sue Musk but he has not. So he has proved himself to be a liar! Of course if he did sue Musk, he can use truth as his defense and would have proved that guy did something illegal.

The reason that so many hate Musk is that he is trying to save the world by reducing the burning of fossil fuels that creates a gas that can kill someone in 5 minutes in a closed garage. A lot of people make a lot of money doing this so do not want Musk doing what he is trying to do. They drive a lot of gas cars in Beijing. See:

Does breathing the air of Beijing have the same health risks as smoking 40 cigarettes a day?

Was Porsche's first car, in 1898, electric?

Why was Elon Musk at the Thai cave rescue?

Elon Musk has tweeted that he visited the Thai rescue operation but did not share images of himself at the site

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk's attempt to help the Thai cave rescue mission has attracted both praise and criticism.

The SpaceX and Tesla chief posted on social media that he had visited the operation's command centre, where he said he had left a mini-submarine that had been designed to carry a trapped football team to safety.

The head of the rescue mission thanked Mr Musk for his offer.

But he said the sub could not be used.

"The equipment they brought to help us is not practical with our mission," Narongsak Osotthanakorn explained.

"Even though their equipment is technologically sophisticated, it doesn't fit with our mission to go in the cave."

Thai Navy Seals subsequently announced that all 12 boys and their coach had been brought out safely.

Mr Musk has since tweeted an email from Richard Stanton - one of two British caving experts called in to front the rescue - which had urged the business leader to build the capsule as quickly as possible.

Two days later Mr Musk confirmed he was sending engineers from SpaceX and his Boring Company - which specialises in drilling - to Thailand.

He followed with several posts speculating about possible technical solutions to the problem. These includeda proposal for an air tube that could be inflated "with air like a bouncy castle", which he suggested could let the cut-off party walk to freedom.

Mr Musk ultimately settled on turning part of one of SpaceX's Falcon rockets into a "kid-size submarine", and he posted videos of its tests online.

When questioned whether the craft risked blocking a tight section of the tunnel system, he replied that his engineers had built an inflatable replica of the craft, which could be used to check that this would not happen.

He added that a smaller version was also being built .

"Based on extensive cave video review and discussion with several divers who know [the] journey, SpaceX engineering is absolutely certain that mini-sub can do entire journey and demonstrate at any time," he posted .

Although the craft was not needed, Mr Musk has said that he has left the mini-sub with the Thai authorities "in case it may be useful in the future".

The billionaire has form with making eye-catching humanitarian acts.

Last year, he was thanked by Puerto Rico's governor for setting up a solar panel and battery system to provide power to a children's hospital in San Juan after it was hit by a hurricane.

But while his most recent intervention has won him praise from some, others have questioned his motivations and suggested he might even have been a distraction.

"Elon Musk is well known to have an eye for the headlines, but to be fair he only became involved after a message from one of his army of fans on Twitter," commented the BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.

"The fact that his company's space technology and its much vaunted tunnelling skills proved irrelevant to the operation is a reminder that sometimes this tech superhero doesn't quite match up to the Iron Man of his fans' dreams."