“We Need To Stop Panicking”: Elon Musk Ignored Advice On Restoring Image After Baseless “Pedo Guy” Allegation

After making his now famous “pedo guy” allegation against British cave diver Vern Unsworth, Elon Musk was presented with advice from his top lieutenants on how to restore his image and “clean up”, according to Bloomberg.

Musk (surprise) decided to ignore the advice. 

Sam Teller, a director in the office of the CEO at Tesla, SpaceX, Boring Co. and Neuralink, sought out feedback from executives and lawyers on what Musk should do after making his baseless claims. 

For his efforts, Teller was told by Musk: 

“After sleeping on this, I’m not happy about the suggested approach. It would have been particularly foolish and craven to apologize the night after Tesla’s shares declined, as it would simply have been dismissed as a disingenuous and cowardly attempt to restore the stock price. We need to stop panicking.“

The documents were revealed as part of the ongoing circus that has been Unsworth’s defamation suit against Musk, who referred to himself as a “fucking idiot” for the comments he made about the cave diver. We recently documented Unsworth’s recent opposition to Musk’s motion for dismissal – a document that eviscerated Musk and his defense. 

The documents show that Teller advised Musk on an apology for his behavior after soliciting feedback from SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell, Tesla CFO Deepak Ahuja, Executive Director of the ACLU Anthony Romero and Tesla Director Antonio Gracias, among others. 

Teller suggested Musk address his employees by saying:

 “I understand that my recent behavior has probably embarrassed you and I’m sorry.”

He also suggested Musk tell people he will do his best to “tune out” Twitter critics.

Musk instead decided to apologize via tweets, saying he had “acted in anger”. 

Shortly thereafter, Musk emailed a BuzzFeed reporter not to apologize, but rather to renew his attack on Unsworth. 

Jeff Nesbit, the executive director of Climate Nexus, an environmental communications non-profit, was alarmed by Musk’s attacks: 

“It clearly blew up in his face, for no good reason. One or two more of these and I can guarantee that there will be a no confidence vote on the BOD led by the big institutional investors. And he will not survive such a vote, at least not in the public sphere.”

It was just about month later that Musk tweeted out that he had “funding secured” to take the company private when he didn’t.