Alex Gibney's 'Musk' documentary aims to spark debate on tech power

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has said his documentary about Elon Musk is intended to open a wider conversation about the influence wielded by technology billionaires. The nearly four-hour film, titled "Musk," had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Gibney began work on the project before U.S. President Donald Trump's second term and expanded it after Musk became a close aide to Trump. The documentary was initially about two hours long before being extended, the director said.

"I hope it's the beginning of the discussion for all of us, not only citizens in the United States, but citizens of the world, to begin to take back power from these tech oligarchs who seem to be desirous of running the world for themselves," Gibney said in an interview.

The film follows Musk's trajectory from the dotcom era and his purchase of a $1 million McLaren through his rise as chief executive of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, which made him the world's richest person. It includes interviews with his father Errol Musk, former Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard and Ashley St. Clair, Musk's former partner and the mother of one of his children.

Gibney described the documentary as a study of how absolute power corrupts, or perhaps how power reveals character, raising the question of whether Musk was always headed in this direction or whether power changed him.

Musk has criticised the film on his social media platform X, calling it a "false film" and threatening to sue. Gibney said his team carried out rigorous fact-checking and a legal review. Musk, reached through SpaceX, did not respond to a request for comment.

Gibney, whose previous subjects include the collapse of energy firm Enron and Scientology, said tech CEOs were becoming villains in an "ultimate pay-to-play presidency," disregarding federal regulations and accumulating influence that diminishes democratic oversight. He said the hardest part of the film was conveying the breadth of Musk's power in government and what he described as its unaccountability and aimlessness.

Musk did not agree to an interview for the film. Instead, it features a simulated interview with a character styled in a leather jacket with slicked-back hair, seated in a futuristic room lit in red and blue. The script draws on a database of Musk's public statements and comments. Some sequences shift into a first-person shooter game format, with the simulation firing Twitter employees after Musk's acquisition of the platform and depicting federal layoffs carried out by DOGE, including at regulators overseeing his companies.

The film first premiered at the Venice Film Festival and will be screened this fall.