Elon Musk's lawyer sent a legal warning to the producers of "Musk," the nearly four-hour Alex Gibney documentary opening October 9, accusing the film of starting from a predetermined conclusion. Gibney defended the film's fact-checking and legal review, escalating the feud between the billionaire and the Oscar-winning filmmaker.
The documentary, directed by Alex Gibney — the Oscar winner behind "Taxi to the Dark Side," "Going Clear" and "The Inventor" — runs 225 minutes with a 10-minute intermission and chronicles Musk's rise from Silicon Valley entrepreneur to owner of X and onetime confidante of Donald Trump. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 8 to a standing ovation and strong early reviews, and distributor Bleecker Street moved the theatrical release up by a week, to October 9 in New York and Los Angeles with a nationwide expansion on October 16, citing intense public interest.
Musk did not participate in the film. Instead, Gibney uses an animated avatar of Musk that speaks actual quotes from his past public appearances. The film features interviews with Musk's first ex-wife Justine Musk, former partner Ashley St. Clair, journalists Kara Swisher and Zoe Schiffer, Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard and AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, among others, and covers Tesla, SpaceX, X, his political influence and his role in the DOGE government-efficiency drive.
Musk has been attacking the project for years, calling Gibney a "bitter old man who lost the plot long ago" and a "horrible human," and dismissing the film as a "hit piece." His attorney, Alex Spiro, formalized the threat on September 3 — five days before the Venice premiere — sending a legal notice to Gibney's Jigsaw Productions. "While we are ardent supporters of the First Amendment, and respect the reporting process, it has become abundantly clear that the motivations behind this piece are not the pursuit of truth, but something far different. This project did not begin as an inquiry. It began with a conclusion," Spiro wrote. The letter targets the film's handling of claims that Musk used Starlink to sway the 2024 US presidential election in Trump's favor.
Gibney has defended the film, saying his team conducted extensive fact-checking and legal review and made many formal outreach attempts to Musk. "I reached out immediately... But he clearly wasn't interested in talking," Gibney said. No lawsuit has actually been filed. As the October 9 release approaches, the legal threat has become part of the film's story — and, if box-office history is any guide, possibly its best marketing.