A British caver who helped rescue 12 boys from a Thai cave has said he may take legal action against Elon Musk after the entrepreneur made derogatory remarks about him.
Tesla CEO Musk launched a tirade against Vernon Unsworth without providing any justification or explanation.
It came after the cave expert slammed Mr Musk's offer of a miniature submarine to extract the footballers from the Tham Luang cave as a "PR stunt".
The "Wild Boar" team were rescued last week by an international team of divers through a narrow network of twisting, flooded tunnels.
Mr Unsworth, who provided mapping knowledge of the cave to rescuers, said Mr Musk's prototype would have had "absolutely no chance of working".
Mr Musk responded yesterday in a bizarre series of tweets referring to Mr Unsworth without using his name in a derogatory way.
He then doubled down on the claim, tweeting from his official account to more than 22 million followers: "Bet ya a signed dollar it's true."
Mr Musk later deleted the tweets and did not immediately respond to a request for comment through Tesla.
Mr Unsworth said he had not reviewed the tweets in full and had only heard about them.
Asked if he would take legal action against Mr Musk over the allegation, Mr Unsworth said: "If it's what I think it is, yes."
The caver said he would make a decision when he flies back to the UK this week, but said the episode with Mr Musk "ain't finished".
"He's just a PR stunt merchant - that's all he is," Mr Unsworth added.
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Mr Unsworth, who lives part of the year in Thailand, took part in the 18-day effort to retrieve the 12 boys and their coach, a mission that ended on 10 July when the last five members were extracted.
The boys got stuck in the cave after wandering in on 23 June after football training only to find themselves trapped by rising floodwaters.
They were found nine days later on a muddy embankment several kilometres inside.
The unprecedented operation to haul them out involved sedating the footballers, and swimming and carrying them through tight, waterlogged passages.
The boys are all in good health and expected to be discharged from the hospital on Thursday.
Mr Musk's tweets prompted condemnation from those who took part in the mission to save the boys.
Claus Rasmussen, a Danish national and instructor at Blue Label diving in Phuket, called the allegations "inappropriate" and praised Mr Unsworth's role in the rescue.
"He was the guy who effectively mapped most of that cave," he said.
"He was one of the driving forces in getting everything done and clarifying for us divers what was going on."
Mr Musk had earlier provoked condemnation after tweeting that the Thai rescue chief, who had declined the submarine prototype offer, was not really in charge of the operation.
