Alex Gibney arrived at the Venice Film Festival with an unusually long proposition: nearly four hours spent examining Elon Musk.¹ The resulting documentary, “Musk,” premiered as a deep dive into the Tesla and SpaceX chief’s business practices, political activity and private life, built around interviews with figures including his father Errol Musk, Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard, first wife Justine Musk and Ashley St. Clair.²

St. Clair, who appeared with Gibney at a Venice press conference before the premiere, said she had declined a $40 million nondisclosure agreement to speak about her time with Musk. “When you’re offered something like that … it really causes a debate in your head about what your speech means,” she said.² Her appearance sharpened the film’s evident argument: that Musk’s immense power deserves sustained scrutiny.

Musk’s response came the next day — forceful, personal and dismissive. He described Gibney as a man with “ZERO integrity” and said the filmmaker had assembled “a hit list of people who either have an axe to grind or don’t even know me.”² On X, Musk then framed the dispute in starker terms: “Gutless Gibney’s fatal flaw of fabricating a false film.”Elon Musk (elonmusk)³

His posts also folded the documentary into a broader grievance about hostile coverage. Musk endorsed a post about “How the anti-Elon narrative is made” with a single-word verdict: “Accurate.”Elon Musk (elonmusk)⁴ He also reposted criticism of Gibney as a director who had made a four-hour film about a “builder” he could not measure up to.Elon Musk (elonmusk)⁵

The clash leaves two irreconcilable readings of the same film: Gibney’s camp presents testimony and scrutiny; Musk presents a pre-packaged smear. The documentary is scheduled for an Oct. 7 Bay Area premiere at Mill Valley and a theatrical run beginning Oct. 16.²