Musk was clear in his deposition that he "expect[ed]that [Mac] would report" the accusations in his email even "if he did not find any evidence to support it." (SF 76). Musk agreed that in that case,he would have expected Mac to report "[t]hat he had looked into it and could not find any substantiation." (Id.). That is exactly what happened, and Musk's entire course of conduct in leaking information to the press, responding to a request for comment from an adversarial reporterwho had already covered the story, making explosive accusations, unilaterally designating themoff the record before telling the reporter that whether to publish was "up to you," and testifying that he wanted it published irrespective of truth or falsity, demonstrates that it was not only foreseeable to Musk that his accusations against Unsworth would be republished, but that he authorized and intended that they would berepublished.
Indeed, on September 4, 2018, Musk offered this assessment of his foreseeability defense in correspondence with his on-retainer outside PR agent:
I didn't expect Buzzfeed to publish an off the record email. My intent was to have them investigate and come to their own conclusions, not publish my email directly. Still, I'm a fucking idiot..
. . I . . . responded in what I felt was off the record. In the past, Buzzfeed has respected emails prefaced with "off the record," but this time they did not. It was still one of the dumbest things I've ever done....
(SF 65(emphasis added)).