Wood said Musk's"pedo guy"remark was a slur that would overshadow Unsworth's relationships and job prospects for years to come and urged jurors to teach the Tesla chief executive and SpaceX founder a lesson.

But the jury,in its unanimous decision,was apparently swayed by the arguments put forth by Musk's attorney,Alex Spiro,who said the Twitter message in question arose from an argument between two men and amounted to an off-hand insult that no one could be expected to take seriously.

"In arguments you insult people,"he said."There is no bomb. No bomb went off."

Reuters