Elon Musk declined to be interviewed for the new documentary about him, so director Alex Gibney built an artificial intelligence stand in that speaks the billionaire’s own public words instead. According to Ars Technica’s review, that decision is conceptually apt and dramatically flat, and it is far from the only oddity in a film that runs close to four hours and plays, by the end, like two separate movies stitched together.
The documentary frames Musk as something closer to a Gilded Age confidence man reworked for the 21st century: an investor cosplaying as an inventor whose real genius lies in pumping up stocks and dazzling investors and the public alike with visions of a high tech utopian future. Depending on where a viewer stands, the result is bound to press one outrage button or another, which is precisely what makes it a product of the social media driven era in which we live.
Gibney has been turning out documentaries since the 1980s, and his subjects have ranged widely: 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, Sopranos creator David Chase, alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, the opioid epidemic, and cyclist Lance Armstrong. He earned his first Oscar nomination for 2005’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and won Best Documentary Feature two years later for Taxi to the Dark Side. Taking on Musk reads as a natural next step.
Gibney has never been one to avoid controversy, and this project attracted it early. Before release, the film drew the ire of its subject along with threats of a defamation lawsuit. There were also rumors, so far unfounded, that Universal Pictures was getting cold feet about releasing the film theatrically in international markets.
There is no shortage of material to work with. The documentary moves through the most widely known chapters 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 artificial intelligence to fully embracing it with Grok, his embrace of Trump, the creation of DOGE, his alleged drug use, and his 14 children, possibly more. Among those interviewed are his former 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 helped write 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 the documentary is exceptionally well made, yet it splits cleanly in two. The first half focuses on the early entrepreneurial years, deftly weaving archival footage together with the usual talking heads. It reminds viewers who Musk used to be, and the review admits to missing that public version of him, carefully cultivated or not, while the little that is known about his family background serves to humanize him a little.
The second half picks up after the Twitter purchase and the embrace of Trump. Musk, notoriously sensitive to criticism, has accused Gibney of making a “hit piece.” The review argues that it is not one, but the tone turns markedly different and openly adversarial, leaving little doubt about where the director stands. Gibney is a staunch critic of the so-called journalistic “view from nowhere,” and his documentaries typically carry a strong point of view.
During a question and answer session after a screening, Gibney revealed that he had finished the documentary in 2024, only for HBO to ask him to keep going and document Musk’s “heel turn.” The first half was presumably recut in the process, which may help explain why the finished film feels like two documentaries pushed together. It also explains how the running time ballooned to nearly four hours, with a 10 minute intermission. Gibney joked that the real question should be how he limited himself to four hours when six would have been easy. The review suggests the material might have worked better as a six episode miniseries.
Because Musk declined to be interviewed, the director created an AI version of him that utters verbatim public quotes as a stand in for a real conversation. The review understands the reasoning and finds it conceptually apt: this is the artificial intelligence future that Musk and his ilk are working so hard to bring about, popular opinion be damned. The execution, however, is lacking and lands in creepy uncanny valley territory. The AI Musk pales beside archival footage of the actual man, which is far more interesting precisely because it is real.
Musk is a frequently compelling portrait of a complicated man, but the review finds that portrait incomplete in some crucial ways. Gibney’s subject emerges as much a tragic antihero as a con artist or swindler: an idealistic dreamer ultimately corrupted by wealth and power, or what the director calls “noble cause corruption.” The first half left the reviewer mourning who Musk once was and wondering what kind of man he might have become had he made different choices at crucial points on his rise to the top. The film, though, sheds little light on why he ended up on such a dark path.
Would an interview have helped? The review is not so sure. As the documentary makes clear, this is a man who is not really capable of self reflection or of facing hard truths, and he has the wherewithal to keep his bubble intact. As his wealth and influence have grown, so has his detachment from reality. Somehow it still has not made him happy.
Musk is now playing in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles and will open nationwide on October 14. The release is credited to Bleecker Street.
