Elon Musk’s lawyers have threatened legal action against the makers of a new four-hour documentary about the billionaire, accusing the film of defaming him ahead of its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
In a September 3 letter to a producer at Alex Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, accused the Oscar-winning filmmaker of producing the documentary with a predetermined conclusion rather than conducting an objective investigation.
“This project did not begin as an inquiry. It began with a conclusion,” Spiro wrote, while also alleging that Gibney declined to fact-check the documentary with Musk or people close to him.
The film, which premiered Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival, received a lengthy standing ovation and strong reviews. It chronicles Musk’s journey from a South Africa-born dot-com entrepreneur in Silicon Valley in the early 2000s to becoming the world’s first trillionaire.
Gibney also examines Musk’s personal life, including his difficult childhood and the 14 known children he has fathered with different women.
Variety described the documentary as a “lacerating portrait,” while Deadline called it a “damning” film that had “thrashed” Musk as “petty, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, cruel.”
Spiro’s letter places Gibney, Jigsaw and other parties involved in the documentary’s release, including HBO, Bleecker Street and Universal, on notice.
It particularly challenges a sequence that he claims promotes a conspiracy theory suggesting Musk knew early on election night in 2024 that Donald Trump had won because his Starlink satellites had been used to influence the election.
Jigsaw Productions responded to the allegations in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, arguing that scrutiny of powerful public figures is protected by the First Amendment, “including the associates of Elon Musk, who has proclaimed himself to be a ‘free speech absolutist,’” the statement added.
The legal notice also instructs the filmmakers to preserve all materials relating to the documentary because litigation is “reasonably anticipated.”
Musk has meanwhile continued to criticise Gibney and the film on X, the social media platform he owns, describing it as a “hit piece that misses” and dismissing it as boring.
