Elon Musk attacks hero diver 

London : Elon Musk has launched a vicious Twitter rant against a British caver who helped rescue 12 Thai schoolboys trapped in a cave. 

The billionaire attacked the British expat saying ‘he never saw him at the cave’. 

Vernon Unsworth, who led the operation to save the boys stuck in the cave, had earlier accused the Telsa CEO creating a ‘PR stunt’ saying Musk ‘can stick his submarine where it hurts’.

‘It just had absolutely no chance of working. He had no conception of what the cave passage was like’ Mr Unsworth earlier told CNN.

‘The submarine, I believe, was about five-foot-six long, rigid, so it wouldn’t have gone round corners or round any obstacles.’  

In a series of tweets responding to a journalist Musk said: ‘Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand at any point when we were in the caves. Only people in sight were the Thai navy/army guys, who were great. Thai navy seals escorted us in — total opposite of wanting us to leave.

‘Water level was actually very low & still (not flowing) — you could literally have swum to Cave 5 with no gear, which is obv how the kids got in. If not true, then I challenge this dude to show final rescue video. Huge credit to pump & generator team. Unsung heroes here.

‘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.’ 

Mr Unsworth knows the Tham Luang cave system where the boys were trapped very well, as he has spent years exploring it.

Musk was mocked online after the boys were rescued without the aid of his submarine - but he has hit back at critics and said the dive teams encouraged him to continue the work. 

Musk earlier tweeted a screenshot of an email from Richard Stanton, who co-led the dive rescue team, asking him to keep working on the submarine.

He said that ‘former provincial governor’ Narongsak Osottanakorn had been wrongly described as the ‘rescue chief’, adding that Osottanakorn - the man who rejected his sub - is no expert in cave rescue.

The actual expert, according to Musk, is a man by the name of Richard Stanton who encouraged him to build the submarine, saying it ‘may well be used’.  

But he adds: ‘I don’t want to put it on a plane if you think important changes are needed.’

Musk claims Stanton responds: ‘It is absolutely worth continuing with the development of this system in as timely a manner as feasible. If the rain holds out it may well be used.’

Elon answers: ‘Right now, I have one [of] the world’s best engineering teams who normally design spacesuits working on this 24 hours a day.

‘We are trying to get it right in a very short period of time.

‘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.’

Musk also took to Twitter to bemoan being labelled a billionaire in reports about his involvement in the rescue - despite the fact he’s worth £15billion.   

‘Ironically, the ‘billionaire’ label, when used by media, is almost always meant to devalue & denigrate the subject’ he said.

‘I wasn’t called that until my companies got to a certain size, but reality is that I still do the same science & engineering as before. Just the scale has changed.’