Los Angeles (AFP)

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, has maintained Wednesday in the court in Los Angeles where he is judged since yesterday, that the tweet in which he described in July 2018 a British speleologist "dude pedo" was certainly insulting but not was not a defamatory charge.

If the federal court finds him guilty of defamation, the billionaire could indeed be sentenced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation to Vernon Unsworth, 64-year-old Briton at the origin of the complaint.

In an interview with CNN television, the latter described as "publicity stunt" Elon Musk's sending of a miniature submarine to help rescue 12 young footballers and their coach, trapped by the rise of waters as they explored a Thai cave.

The young people were stranded for two weeks before being evacuated after a large-scale international operation, to which the British caver, who spends part of the year in Thailand where his companion is from and knows well the cave, had actively participated.

Rescue did not need to use the craft designed by Elon Musk and his teams.

In his interview with CNN, Unsworth also told Elon Musk that he could "put his submarine where it hurts", saying the craft was unsuited to the cave where the children were stuck.

The whimsical billionaire had not appreciated the tone or the "wrong statements" according to him, and he had replied on Twitter by using the term "guy pedo" ("pedo guy") to refer to Mr. Unsworth.

"Guy pedo, it's less serious than pedo, especially in the context that I used in the Tweet," said Elon Musk Wednesday, at the end of his testimony in court. "This is obviously an insult, no one interpreted it as meaning that he was really pedophile," he defended himself, as sober in his responses as his outfit, dark suit and white shirt.

- "It's disgusting" -

Vernon Unsworth, for his part, assured that his reputation had been irreparably damaged by the tweets in question.

"I have been publicly named as a pedophile, it's disgusting," said the sexagenarian in court, saying he still feels "humiliated" today.

"Since the first day (tweets, ed), concretely I was sentenced to life, with no possibility of remission," he said in a trembling voice, repressing with difficulty sobs.

"Sometimes I feel very vulnerable, very isolated, I manage on my own with this, I put a lid on top," said Vernon Unsworth, visibly nervous since the opening of the trial Tuesday.

And the complainant protested his good faith in his criticism of the submarine designed by Elon Musk. "My opinion was based on the physical characteristics of the + tube + (...) It was not adapted," repeated the complainant.

On Wednesday morning, Elon Musk's lawyer, Alex Spiro, insisted that in his response, Mr Musk had never explicitly accused Mr Unsworth of pedophile acts and that he did not at no time quoted his name on Twitter.

Faced with the outcry provoked at the time by his comments on the social network, the boss had also apologized to the spelunker and erased the messages in question.

On the first day of the trial, the 48-year-old billionaire reiterated his apology to Vernon Unsworth, explaining that he wanted to defend the work of his teams around the rescue operation, on which he had extensively tweeted in July 2018, before, during and after after his trip to Thailand with the rescue team.

The whimsical businessman is often singled out for his pranks and unwanted tweets, which have already earned him trouble with the stock market authorities in the United States.

Asked about his fortune on Wednesday in court, Elon Musk tried to kick into touch by explaining certainly have shares of SpaceX and Tesla but also "debts" accompanying these actions, "whose value fluctuates daily."

However, he eventually admitted that these actions were "probably about $ 20 billion".

© 2019 AFP