Musk hires prison convict private investigator to investigate "pedo guy"

[spartaman64]

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Folks, you hate to see it. These days, when you’re a billionaire electric car/private space travel magnate who accuses a random guy in Thailand of being a pedophile on Twitter, you can’t even blow $50,000 to hire a private investigator to try and prove that guy is actually a pedophile without finding out said private investigator is really a convicted thief who’s lying about his military record and makes you look like a fool in public yet again. It’s just not fair.

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Musk sort of injected himself into the story by designing a submarine that could get them out. It seems noble on its face, but the effort was quickly ridiculed as an unfeasible PR stunt by Vernon Unsworth, a veteran diver and British expat in Thailand who was actually involved with the rescue effort.

So Musk responded in a super normal and cool way: by calling Unsworth a “pedo guy” on Twitter.

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After Musk lobbed his tweet, what we do know is he hired a private investigator to try and dig up dirt on Unsworth’s past, ostensibly to try and figure out if he was a child rapist because it ain’t libel if it’s true.

What we did not know, until today thanks to BuzzFeed News, is that this private investigator is nothing of the sort. He’s James Howard-Higgins, who was sentenced to three years in prison in the UK for defrauding his business partner.

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Musk claims to have never directly spoken with the private investigator. But in a deposition, he said he thought Howard-Higgins “appeared to be credible” based on information given to him by Birchall, who was communicating with the investigator using the alias “James Brickhouse.”

In emails sent by Howard-Higgins to Birchall, he claims to have spent 11 years in the UK special forces and two years with the United Kingdom’s security services with additional work for the likes of billionaires George Soros and Paul Allen.

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Emphasis mine, because, and I cannot stress this enough: when somebody says they were in the Special Forces, they almost certainly were not.

In fact, a former business partner told BuzzFeed News that Howard-Higgins never served in the military at all—or even the police. But he was still somehow hired by Musk’s team for about $50,000 to dig up dirt on Unsworth.

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The story says Howard-Higgins then fed Musk’s family office all sorts of dubious, heavily hedged and unverified information, including about the age of Unsworth’s partner in Thailand. Musk doubled-down on his “pedophile” claims, including to BuzzFeed News, where he even called the diver a “child rapist.”

https://jalopnik.com/brain-genius-elon-musk-got-rolled-by-worlds-most-obviou-1838753289

 

I admit i second guessed mr unsworth when musk wrote the letter to buzzfeed saying he has evidence since if anyone has the resources and will to prove it its musk. But it turns out musk got scammed and this doesn't bode well for him winning the lawsuit.

[John_Trollinski]

22 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

until today thanks to BuzzFeed News,

really gonna trust. . . this any links to some legit articles? This could be interesting but also who would really care.

[spartaman64]

12 minutes ago, John_Trollinski said:

really gonna trust. . . this any links to some legit articles? This could be interesting but also who would really care.

They were the ones musk wrote to saying he has proof so that's probably why they investigated where his proof is coming from

[John_Trollinski]

@spartaman64 can you put a link to an article in the thread. I would like to read more.

[mr moose]

I don't care much anymore, all we have here is two uptight self important twats insulting each other.    If Elon gets scammed by a crim then that is barely news to me, people get scammed by criminals all the time, that is half of their job.   I hope they both spend millions on lawyers then have the judge throw the lot out of court. 

 

EDIT: then the lawyers can get syphilis and die in a car crash the next day and the world will be a better place.

[spartaman64]

3 hours ago, John_Trollinski said:

@spartaman64 can you put a link to an article in the thread. I would like to read more.

everyone cites buzzfeed so if you dont consider that news then there is none but apparently some of it is public record like the person's prison sentence 

[spartaman64]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

I don't care much anymore, all we have here is two uptight self important twats insulting each other.    If Elon gets scammed by a crim then that is barely news to me, people get scammed by criminals all the time, that is half of their job.   I hope they both spend millions on lawyers then have the judge throw the lot out of court. 

 

EDIT: then the lawyers can get syphilis and die in a car crash the next day and the world will be a better place.

i am a bit sympathetic to unsworth because apparently his maps of the cave system helped in the rescue of the soccer kids a lot and it originally seems like hes overreacting to musk's bad taste insult but later on musk seems to actually believe it and made comments saying that its true and a famous person like musk making those remarks can damage your reputation and make it harder to get a job etc

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

i am a bit sympathetic to unsworth because apparently his maps of the cave system helped in the rescue of the soccer kids a lot and it originally seems like hes overreacting to musk's bad taste insult but later on musk seems to actually believe it and made comments saying that its true and a famous person like musk making those remarks can damage your reputation and make it harder to get a job etc

 

In all the articles I read, he insulted musk and  so musk insulted him back.  They are both behaving like school kids.  

[John_Trollinski]

13 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

everyone cites buzzfeed so if you dont consider that news then there is none but apparently some of it is public record like the person's prison sentence

I don't care about where it is from. I would just like to read more.

[spartaman64]

Just now, mr moose said:

 

In all the articles I read, he insulted musk and  so musk insulted him back.  They are both behaving like school kids.  

the person who was leading the rescue effort politely declines to use musk's submarine but thanks musk for the offer and then musk goes off talking about how that person has no authority and some other diver who the person was leading was actually in charge and that probably pissed off some of the rescuers off

 

found the tweet

 

[spartaman64]

1 minute ago, John_Trollinski said:

I don't care about where it is from. I would just like to read more.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy heres the buzzfeed article on it then

[John_Trollinski]

thanks

 

[Windows95]

what the fuck am i reading

[JZStudios]

17 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

In all the articles I read, he insulted musk and  so musk insulted him back.  They are both behaving like school kids.  

Only if you believe a diver saying Musk's submarine was just a PR move is an insult.

And so Musk called the guy a pedophile, the guy ignored it, then Musk kept calling him a pedophile,

Then the guy asked him to stop, and Musk kept calling him a pedophile so the guy sued.

Then Musk called him a pedophile again, and was wondering why he hadn't been sued, despite the fact he had already been served.

Then Musk hired a private investigator for $50k to come up with "truth" about his baseless accusations.

Then the private investigator turns out to be a con.

 

My buddy is in 100% defense of Musk, because he's just "fucking around" with the guy, but at the point where he's hiring a private investigator and claiming he has proof it's just defamation.

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, JZStudios said:

Only if you believe a diver saying Musk's submarine was just a PR move is an insult.

And so Musk called the guy a pedophile, the guy ignored it, then Musk kept calling him a pedophile,

Then the guy asked him to stop, and Musk kept calling him a pedophile so the guy sued.

Then Musk called him a pedophile again, and was wondering why he hadn't been sued, despite the fact he had already been served.

Then Musk hired a private investigator for $50k to come up with "truth" about his baseless accusations.

Then the private investigator turns out to be a con.

 

My buddy is in 100% defense of Musk, because he's just "fucking around" with the guy, but at the point where he's hiring a private investigator and claiming he has proof it's just defamation.

 

22 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

the person who was leading the rescue effort politely declines to use musk's submarine but thanks musk for the offer and then musk goes off talking about how that person has no authority and some other diver who the person was leading was actually in charge and that probably pissed off some of the rescuers off

 

found the tweet

 

 

 

 

I don't really care what other people think defines an insult, they were both behaving like children. 

[JZStudios]

19 hours ago, mr moose said:

I don't really care what other people think defines an insult, they were both behaving like children. 

Because ignoring a man publicly calling you a pedophile and hiring a P.I. to "prove" so, then sue for defamation is childish. Once again, the other guy ignored it the first few times and Musk kept pushing it. Musk is childish.

[mr moose]

5 hours ago, JZStudios said:

Because ignoring a man publicly calling you a pedophile and hiring a P.I. to "prove" so, then sue for defamation is childish. Once again, the other guy ignored it the first few times and Musk kept pushing it. Musk is childish.

Again, I don't care for anyone else's definitions of what constitutes an insult, ridiculing musk or musk calling him a pedo guy,  whatever.  They are both children.  Nothing needed to be said by either, first last or ongoing.