Elon Musk has blasted a documentary about his life and influence, calling the director Alex Gibney a “bitter old man” with “zero integrity.”
Musk, a nearly four-hour film, caused a stir after premiering Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a five-minute standing ovation. It is highly critical of Musk and includes damning claims about his past relationships and business pursuits.
In an angry tirade shared on X, which he bought for $44 billion in 2022, Musk branded the film a “hit piece that misses.”
“Gibney deliberately set out to make a hit piece and lacks any integrity whatsoever,” he said.
In another post, he wrote: “Gibney has zero integrity. Zero. Fortunately, his movies are boring af….It’s a hit piece that misses, and makes the fatal sin of being boring for 4 hours.”
He added: “Gibney just 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)….Yeah, he’s a bitter old man who lost the plot long ago.”
In another post, he said: “Dogs*** is worth more respect than Gibney.”
The film features an interview with Musk’s ex, the former MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair, who makes striking claims about how Musk zeroed in on young women he thought would make good “breeders” to have his children. The tech mogul has 14 kids in total, and shares a son, Romulus, with St. Clair.
She also claims in the documentary that his team offered her $40 million to sign a non-disclosure agreement about their time together.
Musk specifically denied a claim about the NDA on X. “She was never offered that and has a history of making false claims,” he wrote.
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Musk also interacted with a post by the podcaster Katie Miller, the wife of Donald Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller, who was the former communications director for Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Miller complained about the alleged absence of Musk’s allies or acquaintances in the film. “It simply can’t be ‘definitive’ if the people who were present didn’t participate,” she said. “This fictional movie is a hit job by a self-obsessed Hollywood director.”
Speaking at a press conference in Venice, Gibney said people whom he approached about being involved in the film had a “tremendous sense of fear” that was “existential.” He also said he believes Musk, the world’s richest man, is “extremely ridiculous.”
Gibney also gave his opinion on how events in Musk’s childhood in South Africa may explain his behavior.
“He had a childhood that was very difficult and traumatic,” Gibney said. “To some extent he’s now playing out that trauma on the rest of us, if I were to psychoanalyze the situation.”
At the press conference, St. Clair claimed that Musk told her in a text message that he wanted to have a child with her because he needed to have “a legion of children before the civil war.” The Independent has contacted representatives for Musk and Gibney for comment.
She also said: “Whatever it is, what he’s doing with this platform on X cannot be ignored, because he is stoking flames that don’t exist in the real world.” She then added: “I do believe that he is causing deliberate division that may be catastrophic if it’s not regulated or tamed, or if we don’t do our part in putting it down.”
Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro sent the production a letter accusing Gibney of misrepresenting facts about Musk, and criticizing Gibney for “not engaging” with Musk’s team during fact-checking, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Gibney claims that Musk declined to collaborate or appear in the documentary.
So far, film critics have been complimentary of the documentary. The Hollywood Reporter‘s review called the film “a poleaxing portrait of the tech titan as a con man given way too much power to be stopped” that will leave you “simmering in outrage for 225 minutes.” Meanwhile, Variety’s review said it’s a “lacerating portrait of technocratic brilliance, power lust and crackpot delusion.”
The film will be released in select theaters October 16.