Elon Musk, the brash Silicon Valley billionaire, was sued Monday by a British caver Musk had accused of being a pedophile after the two butted heads over the high-profile rescue of children from a cave in Thailand this summer.

In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in California, lawyers for the caver, Vernon Unsworth, accused Musk of embarking on a defamation campaign “to destroy” Unsworth’s reputation “by publishing false and heinous accusations of criminality.”

“Musk’s influence and wealth cannot convert his lies into truth or protect him from accountability for his wrongdoing in a court of law,” one of the caver’s lawyers, L. Lin Wood, said in an emailed statement. The suit is seeking damages in excess of $75,000.

The lawsuit stems from the efforts to rescue members of a children’s soccer team who, with their coach, had become trapped by rising waters in a Thai cave on June 23 — a predicament that captivated the world. According to the lawsuit, Unsworth, who had explored the cave over the past six years, became involved the next day.

In early July, Musk sent a team of engineers from the companies he leads — Tesla, SpaceX and Boring Co. — to Thailand to assist. At the time, he said on Twitter that they might be able to use a “tiny, kid-size submarine” to retrieve the children, a plan that was rejected.

“He can stick his submarine where it hurts,” Unsworth said in a CNN video. “It just had absolutely no chance of working.”

Angered, Musk called Unsworth a “pedo guy” in a series of tweets. While he later deleted and apologized for them, Musk renewed the attack recently.