Nafnlaus

Birchall was questioned by defense attorney michael lifrak after lunch. Defense tries to establish that the hiring of the PI was because Musk felt litigation was imminent. Birchall says that PI was told to find and leak “facts” to help catalyze “investigative reporting.”

Y’all gonna love this. Defense brings up a march 2018 email from Birchall using the Jim brickhouse name and email when he was trying to buy a web domain for Musk. The domain Musk wanted to buy was http://justballs.com . Terms were never agreed and they never bought it.

Upon recross, Wood asked why hire a PI to combat potential litigation if that PI was just going to leak info to the press. Birchall conceded that part of the campaign was to combat the negative press against Musk.

Wood got stonewalled by objections and the judge after that and kind of got flustered. He clearly does not have a great relationship with the judge. He concluded but not before asking about http://justballs.com  in his thick southern accent. This is gonna haunt me.

The next witness up was cave diver and hero Rick Stanton. Tbh he didn’t do much for either side besides establish Unsworth as key to the rescue. Both sides got stonewalled though Spiro came off looking particularly owned after getting multiple tellings off by the judge.

Next up on the stand: plaintiff Vernon Unsworth. See you guys on the other side.

Rick Stanton actually gave a quick interview to reporters after testifying. He was the main diver in communication with Musk who asked him to build the tube. He said that the pod was never going to work and was not built to specification. It was never going to work he said.

He said that Musk showing up at the cave system with the tube, which clearly would not work, was “showboating.” He did not have nice things to say about the tube and wouldn’t even call it “a submarine.” He wouldn’t comment on the “pedo guy” statement.