Documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney's new film, Musk, premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 8, 2026. The 225-minute film got a five-minute standing ovation. Reviews from Deadline, Variety, IndieWire, and The Hollywood Reporter followed. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk didn't participate in the film. Five days before the premiere, on September 3, his attorney sent a legal notice to Gibney's production company over one specific claim: that Musk used his Starlink satellites to help tip the 2024 election toward President Donald Trump. On X, Musk has called the film a "hit piece" and "boring." The film is scheduled to hit U.S. theaters October 16.

1. The film is accurate, damning journalism (Alex Gibney, director; Jigsaw Productions)

Gibney says the reporting holds up, and the reviews back him.

People close to Musk were too scared to talk. At the Venice premiere, Gibney said he ran into "a tremendous sense of fear of talking, really almost existential fear" while making the film. He compares Musk's fortune to the subjects of his earlier films about inflated-stock fraud. Musk's "wealth and power comes from inflated stock," Gibney said.

Critics praised the reporting itself, on top of the filmmaking. Deadline's review says the film "gives Elon the takedown he richly deserves" and depicts Musk as "petty, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, cruel." Variety calls it "a lacerating portrait of technocratic brilliance, power lust and crackpot delusion." IndieWire calls it "distressing, damning, alarming." The Hollywood Reporter calls it "a poleaxing portrait of the tech titan as a con man given way too much power to be stopped."

Jigsaw Productions says the legal threat proves the point. In a statement, Jigsaw said Gibney's films are "consistently recognized for their in-depth, fact-driven explorations of influential figures." The company pointed to his Academy Award and to the Times of London calling him the "gold standard for fearless journalistic integrity." Jigsaw's statement argues the First Amendment protects "fact-based examinations of powerful public figures." It pointedly adds that protection should be "recognized and defended... including [by] the associates of Elon Musk, who has proclaimed himself to be a 'free speech absolutist'."

2. The film is a biased hit piece built on a debunked claim (Elon Musk; Alex Spiro, Musk's attorney)

Musk says the insinuation about Starlink and the election is false and was already knocked down two years ago.

Musk is attacking Gibney's credibility personally, on top of criticizing the film. He's called Gibney a "bitter old man" who "lost the plot long ago" and a "horrible human" with "zero integrity." He's dismissed the movie itself as "boring" and a "hit piece that misses."

His lawyer is targeting one specific claim. In the film, conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair, who had a child with Musk in 2024, says Musk told her he'd "unleash the anomaly in the matrix" through his "10,000 lasers in space." That's an apparent reference to Starlink and the 2024 election. Musk's attorney, Alex Spiro, sent Gibney's production company a letter on September 3. It states "Starlink was not connected to vote tabulation" and that "election officials in multiple states, independent cybersecurity researchers, and fact-checkers publicly refuted the Starlink vote-rigging claim in November 2024." Spiro's letter adds: "This project did not begin as an inquiry. It began with a conclusion."

Musk is also disputing a separate claim about St. Clair. He denies ever offering her $40 million tied to a non-disclosure agreement, writing on X that "she was never offered that and has a history of making false claims."

Where This Lands

Gibney and his backers point to the reviews: a widely praised, thoroughly reported film that made powerful people nervous enough to go quiet. Musk and his lawyer say one specific insinuation in the film revives an election claim that was already knocked down in 2024. They say that's enough on its own to threaten a lawsuit before the film even opens in theaters.

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