Alex Gibney’s provocative film is compelling but overlong, and there’s not much new here for Ars readers.
Credit: AP
Elon Musk is a very familiar figure to Ars readers, given his massive influence (for better and worse) on the technology sector over the last 20 years. Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney’s latest biographical documentary—simply titled Musk —covers a lot of well-known ground and challenges the carefully crafted public image of Musk as a visionary tech titan.
Gibney’s documentary presents Musk as more of a Gilded Age confidence man, rejiggered for the 21st century: an investor cosplaying as an inventor whose real genius is pumping stocks and dazzling investors and the public alike with visions of a high-tech utopian future. The film is bound to push all the right outrage buttons, whether one is a Musk fan or a detractor—which makes it very much a product of the peculiar social media-driven era in which we live.
Gibney has been making documentaries since the 1980s, covering such varied subjects as Jimi Hendrix, Hunter S. Thompson and gonzo journalism, WikiLeaks, Scientology, Steve Jobs, Elizabeth Holmes (the subject of another forthcoming documentary, You Can See Everything, featuring comedian Nathan Fielder), Boris Becker, The Sopranos creator David Chase_,_ alleged Russian interference in the US 2016 presidential election, the opioid epidemic, and cyclist Lance Armstrong. He snagged his first Oscar nomination for 2005’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature two years later for Taxi to the Dark Side.
Tackling the subject of Elon Musk seems like a natural progression from those earlier works. Gibney has never been one to shy away from controversy, but even before Musk’s release, the film drew the ire of its subject and threats of a defamation lawsuit. There were even (as yet unfounded) rumors that Universal Pictures was getting cold feet about theatrically releasing the film in international markets.
There’s certainly no shortage of material for Gibney to work with, and the film covers the most well-known aspects of Musk’s life: Tesla and the fatalities linked to its driver-assistance systems, SpaceX, Starlink, his purchase of Twitter, his shift from warning about the risks of AI to fully embracing it with Grok, his embrace of Trump, the creation of DOGE, his alleged drug use, and his 14 (possibly more) children. Those interviewed include ex-wife Justine Musk, Kara Swisher, Martin Eberhard, Geoffrey Hinton, former MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair (who bore a child by Musk), Cory Doctorow, Adam Becker, and Sam Harris. David Byrne co-wrote and performed an original song, “Let Me Sell You a Dream,” for the soundtrack, incorporating more of Musk’s words.
Gibney is a gifted filmmaker, and Musk is exceptionally well-done. But the documentary ends up feeling like two very different films. The first half focuses on the early entrepreneurial years, deftly incorporating archival footage with the usual talking heads. It reminds us of who Musk used to be—frankly, I miss that public version of Musk, even if it was carefully cultivated—and what little is known about his family background serves to humanize him a little.
Visionary or flim-flam man?
Musk then
Greg Segal
Musk now.
Ken Cedenoupi/UPI Alamy
Musk then Greg Segal
Musk now. Ken Cedenoupi/UPI Alamy
The second half focuses on Musk after his purchase of Twitter and embrace of Trump. The notoriously thin-skinned Musk has accused Gibney of making a “hit piece.” It’s not, but the tone in the second half is markedly different and certainly more adversarial, leaving little doubt about where Gibney stands. (The director is a staunch critic of the so-called journalistic “view from nowhere,” and his documentaries typically have a strong point of view.)
During a post-screening Q&A, Gibney revealed that he had finished the documentary in 2024, but HBO asked him to keep going to document Musk’s “heel turn,” if you will. One assumes he recut the first half in the process, but perhaps that’s why Musk feels like two different documentary films smushed together. That’s also how the documentary ballooned to nearly four hours (with a 10-minute intermission). Gibney joked during the Q&A that the real question should be, how did he limit himself to just four hours when it could easily have been stretched to six? In that case, perhaps it might have worked better as a six-episode documentary miniseries.
Musk declined to be interviewed for the film, so the director created an AI version of Musk uttering verbatim public quotes as a stand-in for a real interview. I get why Gibney decided to do this, and it’s conceptually apt: This is the AI future that Musk and his ilk are working so hard to bring about, popular opinion be damned. So sure, give him the AI avatar treatment. But the execution is lacking; it’s creepy uncanny valley stuff. The AI Musk pales in comparison with the archival footage of the actual Musk, which is far more interesting precisely because it’s real.
Musk is a frequently compelling portrait of a complicated man, but that portrait is incomplete in some crucial ways. Gibney’s portrayal is as much tragic anti-hero as con artist or flim-flam man—an idealistic dreamer ultimately corrupted by wealth and power, or what Gibney calls “noble cause corruption.” The first half of the documentary made me mourn who Musk once was and wonder what kind of man he might have become had he made different choices at crucial points on his rise to the top. But the film sheds little light on why he ended up on such a dark path.
Would Musk agreeing to be interviewed have helped? I am not so sure. This is a man, as the film makes clear, who really isn’t capable of self-reflection or facing hard truths, and he has the wherewithal to keep his bubble intact. As his wealth and influence have increased, so has his detachment from reality. Somehow it still hasn’t made him happy.
Musk is now playing in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles. It will open nationwide on October 14.
Credit: Bleecker Street
