Directed by Alex Gibney, the expansive new documentary “Musk” traces Elon Musk’s evolution.
Alex Gibney’s Exhaustive Four-Hour Portrait Opens in Theaters
Filmmaker Alex Gibney spent time researching Elon Musk for an exhaustive documentary titled simply “Musk.” The project clocks in at three hours and fifty-five minutes, complete with a ten-minute intermission at the halfway point for its theatrical run. The project arrives as Musk plays a central role in business, science, tech, and politics, following a trajectory that has taken him from electric vehicles and rocket launches to the heart of federal policymaking.
Musk declined to participate in the project. When Gibney first approached him, the billionaire took to X to inform his followers that the filmmaker was a douche,
a characterization the documentary embraces directly. Rather than securing an interview with the subject, Gibney’s team gathered a vast trove of litigation files, public posts, and archival footage. Instead of conducting an interview, Gibney constructed a disturbing synthetic replica of Musk programmed to voice statements that the billionaire genuinely stated.
The documentary opened in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles before expanding nationwide, landing less than a month before the midterm elections. Critics have pointed out that the release timing is no accident, positioning the project as a piece of political commentary for voters weighing the influence of tech magnates. Ahead of its rollout, leading social media networks chose not to accept paid advertisements for the film’s promotional clip, pointing to policies governing political content.
From Renewable Energy Evangelist to Right-Wing Mega-Donor
The film walks viewers through the chronological arc of Musk’s career, beginning with his early days in Silicon Valley and his management of Tesla and SpaceX. Following the sale of PayPal, he took his financial payout and funneled it into Tesla, an enterprise originally founded by a pair of engineers named Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard. As the film notes, Tesla’s success relied heavily on federal support, and SpaceX functioned as an enterprise backed by public launch money, with Falcon 1 becoming the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to orbit Earth following a liftoff from Omelek Island in the Kwajalein Atoll.
Yet the film draws a line between the early environmentalist champion and the later political figure. The second half of the documentary details Musk’s acquisition of Twitter—rebranded as X—and his alignment with Donald Trump. Musk’s political turn accelerated around the time of the coronavirus pandemic, culminating in his appointment to the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Musk spent nearly $300 million to get Trump elected in 2024, though the documentary notes the spending served to kill dozens of federal investigations into his companies.
“directed by Alex Gibney, tries to take stock of this gigantic, troubled figure, chronicling everything from his innovations to embrace of far right politics.”
Alex Gibney, Director, via PBS
Interviews with engineers who left their jobs after the DOGE takeover and Twitter employees laid off after the acquisition add human faces to the events.
Inside the Testimony of Musk’s Lieutenants and Fixers
What separates the documentary from standard political critique is its reliance on internal voices.
The testimony includes Ashley St. Clair. The documentary also features an interview with Musk’s father, Errol. St. Clair provided information about his relationships with the women who have borne his large brood of children. St. Clair revealed that Elon Musk told her shortly before Election Day 2024 that he was feeling optimistic because tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix
and pointed to lasers from space, saying, I have over 10,000 lasers in space right now.
Unresolved Questions and Public Reception Ahead of the Midterms
While critics have debated whether a four-hour runtime risks information overload, the film has successfully ignited discussions about the concentration of corporate and state power. Gibney has urged audiences to watch the project so they can make informed decisions during the upcoming midterm elections.
The documentary leaves several unsettling questions on the table, including whether private motivations drove Musk’s deep entanglement with federal agencies. Musk and his representatives have dismissed the project entirely, with Musk labeling the filmmaker a douche
and asserting that the documentary is a hit piece.
