Read the email billionaire Ron Baron sent Elon Musk telling him to stop tweeting when angry: 'Get an ice cream cone. Just don't use Twitter'

• Tesla investor Ron Baron once emailed Elon Musk and told him to stop tweeting when upset.
• At the time the email was sent, Musk had called a diver a "pedo."
• The email was uncovered in a lawsuit against Tesla and Musk over his "funding secured" tweet.

Long before Elon Musk became "Chief Twit," Tesla investor Ron Baron once advised the billionaire to stop tweeting when annoyed or angry.

"You should not respond to any criticism in the news or on Twitter," Baron told Musk in an email from July 15, 2018 that was uncovered in a lawsuit against Tesla and Musk over his "funding secured" tweet. 

"The more you react, the more likely they will win," the billionaire investor added. "If something really upsets you, go for a walk around the factory. Get an ice cream cone. Just don't use Twitter."

Baron declined to comment on the email. The billionaire founded the investment firm, Baron Capital, and has been an outspoken supporter of Tesla. He has invested large portions of his estate in the electric-car maker. Baron told CNBC that Musk has made him "$5 billion so far, on a $400 million investment." He also poured about $100 million into Twitter during Musk's takeover.

At the time Baron sent the email, Musk had called a British cave diver who helped rescue a group of boys that were trapped in a cave a "pedo" on Twitter. Musk apologized for the tweet about three days after Baron's email and the "pedo" comment eventually spawned a defamation lawsuit which Musk won in 2019.

In his 2018 email, Baron told Musk to turn the other cheek.

"Your job is just to make the cars and sell them and make them better every day," Baron wrote. "That's all. It's a lot. But that is under your control. Media is not. That is the answer. Don't let them distract you from the mission."

The Tesla investor also advised Musk to avoid politics and "be unfailingly polite to everyone." 

"Be BORING!" Baron wrote to Musk. "Enough excitement about the business. You don't need to add any more personality. Only detracts from mission. Makes you appear unfocused. Makes you vulnerable to criticism."

Musk found himself being criticized for his tweets earlier this week, when he alleged that a laid-off Twitter employee with a disability had done "no actual work" and suggesting that he'd used disability "as his excuse," according to one of Musk's tweets from the episode that's still up. 

After the tweet drove another cycle of chatter online, with another high-profile former Twitter employee subtweeting Musk, an apology followed. 

Musk tweeted a mea culpa on Tuesday, saying his tweets attacking the disabled employee were "based on things I was told that were untrue or, in some cases, true, but not meaningful."

Musk had acknowledged Baron's email when he took the stand in the trial that began mid-January over his tweets in 2018 about taking Tesla private. When an attorney for the plaintiffs showed him the email, Musk offered his own take on Baron's message to him. 

"He's not saying don't use Twitter, he's saying I shouldn't respond to criticism in the news on Twitter," Musk said on the stand at the time. 

The trial, which took place in San Francisco federal court over roughly two and half weeks, concluded with a win for Musk, whom a jury found wasn't liable for the tweets. 

The shareholders are now contesting the verdict — in a filing this month, they asked Judge Chen to "set aside" the jury's conclusion in Musk's favor, arguing that the evidence they'd showed had "overwhelmingly established" that Musk's tweets were material in influencing the company's stock. 

Musk and his attorney Alex Spiro did not respond to Insider's request for comment. 

Read the full email below.