In "Musk," Alex Gibney Punctures Elon's Self-Mythology

Alex Gibney’s nearly four-hour documentary disassembles the myth of Elon Musk by tracing how he accumulated extraordinary technological, corporate, and political power. Working from litigation files, social-media posts, interviews, and archival footage, the film treats Musk’s public record like a prosecution: it reframes Tesla’s origin story, shows how he maneuvered founders aside and secured the “founder” label, and casts doubt on Tesla’s claims about autonomous driving and its reliance on government climate credits. The film links Musk’s satellite ventures to contemporary warfare, dramatizes deadly crashes tied to Autopilot, and catalogs his refusal to cooperate with the director - Musk called the project a “hit piece” - while Gibney uses a digital avatar to let Musk’s own words indict him. The piece situates this work within a broader wave of anti‑oligarch filmmaking and names Ronan Farrow and Lawrence Wright among the producers.

Gibney argues that Musk is less a visionary than an emotionally unstable self-promoter who repeatedly leverages wealth and influence without a moral compass. The documentary details early corporate coups at Zip2 and PayPal, manipulations at Tesla, an obsessive focus on fathering children and controlling their mothers (with testimony from Justine Musk and Ashley St. Clair and documents involving fixer Jared Birchall), and a political radicalization that culminates in the X takeover, the platform’s derepression of extremist voices, alignment with Trump, and attempts to hollow out parts of government. The result is a chilling portrait of concentrated power and a warning to voters about accountability.