MUSK Trailer Takes a Sledgehammer to Elon Musk’s Power, Politics, and Empire
The trailer for Musk has arrived, and Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney is taking a wrecking ball to the public image of Elon Musk.
The nearly four-hour documentary takes a critical look at the billionaire’s rise, immense influence, personal relationships, business empire, and political involvement.
The film includes interviews with people from Musk’s family and inner circle, including his first wife Justine Musk, Ashley St. Clair, who is the mother of one of his children, and his father, Errol Musk. Gibney also speaks with people who have worked closely with Musk over the years.
The trailer makes it clear this isn’t intended to be a flattering portrait: “We have one person who’s this chaotic and has this much power. It’s completely insane,” one critic says in the footage.
Tesla also comes under scrutiny. Another interview subject alleges: “This is a car that lies to you about what it’s doing,” followed by footage involving a deadly crash with a Tesla operating on Autopilot.
One of the documentary’s most contentious subjects involves St. Clair and claims surrounding Musk’s knowledge of the 2024 presidential election. St. Clair recounts conversations in which she says Musk spoke about helping Donald Trump defeat Joe Biden and later claimed to know the election outcome hours in advance.
The documentary raises questions around those remarks, but Musk’s attorney disputes any implication that Musk manipulated the election.
“He had told me, ‘I can’t be president, but I can help Trump beat Biden,’” St. Clair tells Gibney. She reports Musk informed her, “I think we’re gonna win!’ He said, ‘I have 10,000 lasers in space. I knew that hours ago.’”
Musk, through attorney Alex Spiro, has threatened legal action against Gibney over the film. Spiro specifically challenged any suggestion of vote rigging, telling the filmmaker, “You are therefore on notice, before release, that the insinuation is false.”
Gibney addressed the legal threat during an interview with Deadline at the Camden Film Festival in Maine, where Musk recently screened. He acknowledged that a potential lawsuit from someone with Musk’s financial resources isn’t something he can simply shrug off.
“He’s well-funded. And let’s just be honest for a moment and say that with our legal system, money talks in court in a way that it shouldn’t. It’s not like everyone is equal under the law. He’s got a bucket load of money, more money on paper than anybody on the planet.
“And so, is it a concern when braggadocious Alex Spiro fires a broadside and threatens to sue? Yeah, it’s always a concern. But what they threatened to sue about was patently ridiculous. They hadn’t even seen the film.”
Musk appears to be aiming directly at one of the biggest subjects Gibney could possibly tackle. Judging from the trailer the film is examining what happens when enormous wealth, technology, celebrity, politics, and personal power become concentrated around one individual.
Musk should give audiences plenty to argue about when it hits theaters October 9.