A man with a global audience accused another man, in multiple public statements, of pedophilia, sex trafficking, and statutorily raping his wife. When confronted with these statements, he doubled down each time and went further in his attack on the other man's character. Each of those, by itself, could constitute its own act of defamation per se. $10m being too much? On the contrary, $10m seems about right.

OTOH, if this was just one guy in a small town saying those same things about another guy, I'd be surprised if you even got into the six digits. Unfortunately for Elon, scope matters.