Director Alex Gibney's nearly four-hour documentary "Musk" premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 8. On September 3, Musk's attorney Alex Spiro sent Jigsaw Productions a legal notice. It targeted the film's claim that Musk used Starlink satellites to help swing the 2024 election for Trump — a claim based on texts from Musk's former partner, Ashley St. Clair. Musk spent nearly $300 million backing that campaign. Musk has spent the past week and a half attacking the film on X. At one point he called Gibney a "bitter old man" who assembled a "hit list" of biased sources. Today, at a Toronto International Film Festival keynote, Gibney answered back on the record for the first time. The film opens in U.S. theaters October 16.

1. Musk and his lawyer (Elon Musk, attorney Alex Spiro) — this is a hit job, not journalism

Musk says Gibney started with a conclusion and built a film around biased sources.

Musk's lawyer says the documentary began as an attack, not an investigation. Spiro's letter states the project "did not begin as an inquiry. It began with a conclusion." The letter also says election officials in multiple states already refuted the Starlink vote-rigging claim.

Musk says Gibney's sources have grudges against him. Earlier this week, he wrote that Gibney "assembled a hit list of people who either have an axe to grind or don't even know me (but still have an axe to grind)."

Musk has gone after Gibney personally. In the same post, he called him "a horrible human" who lacks "integrity," and "a bitter old man who lost the plot long ago." He's also called the finished film "boring."

2. Gibney and Jigsaw Productions — Musk won't engage, so he's attacking instead

Speaking publicly for the first time today, Gibney says his team tried to reach Musk for months and got nothing but insults on X.

Gibney says Jigsaw repeatedly asked Musk to respond, and he never did. At TIFF today, Gibney said his team made formal, repeated attempts to contact Musk before release and got nothing back except posts on X.

Gibney says the film is rigorously checked. He said the film draws on interviews with hundreds of people, including Musk's ex-wives, former business partners, and AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton. He also said it was independently fact-checked and lawyered.

Musk called the film a hit piece before it was even finished. Gibney's response today: "How would you know?"

Gibney told Musk to live up to his own free-speech pitch. He said Musk's own public persona frames free speech as protecting speech people don't like. Gibney said Musk should "pull up your big-boy pants and embrace free speech" instead of threatening a lawsuit.

3. Ashley St. Clair — she sent the texts, and she's not backing down

The source at the center of the disputed claim says the lawsuit threat is empty.

St. Clair provided the texts the whole dispute is about. She says that before the 2024 election, Musk texted her that he felt "more optimistic" about Trump winning because of Starlink — which he called "over 10 thousand lasers in space."

She says Musk's legal threat is empty. St. Clair called it "a joke," saying Musk's team is "more likely to colonize Mars than win a defamation case against Alex Gibney."

Where This Lands

Musk says the film is a biased hit job built by people with grudges, and his lawyer has already put Jigsaw on notice. Gibney says he tried to get Musk on the record for months and got silence, then insults. He stands by every fact in the film. St. Clair, the source behind the disputed claim, says she stands by what she sent and doesn't think the lawsuit goes anywhere. None of that gets tested until the film actually opens on October 16.

Sources