Elon Musk calls Thailand cave rescuer a 'pedo guy'

The British diver had criticized Musk\'s cave rescue pod as a \"PR stunt.\"

Elon Musk has come under fire for accusing a member of the Thailand cave rescue team of being a pedophile.

The controversy centers around Vern Unsworth, a cave explorer who lives in Thailand and helped evacuate a boys soccer team and their coach from a flooded cave network. The British expat recently criticized Musk's quick development of a kid-size rescue pod as a "PR stunt" that would not have been able to navigate the tightest cave passageways.

Unsworth claimed the pod "had absolutely no chance of working" and Musk's team "had no conception of what the cave passage was like," contradicting information Musk posted as SpaceX and Tesla engineers worked with other members of the rescue team to make sure the device would fit through the tightest spots.

"Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves," Musk fired back on Twitter before removing the post.

The executive challenged Unsworth to post a video of the final rescue to prove his claim that the pod wouldn't have been able to penetrate even the first 50 meters of the cave from the dive start point.

"You know what, don't bother showing the video. We will make one of the mini-sub/pod going all the way to Cave 5 no problemo," Musk wrote in a follow-up post that was also deleted. "Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it."

Speaking to The Guardian, Unsworth suggested he is considering a lawsuit over the pedophile comments.