First Teaser for Alex Gibney's Elon Musk Documentary Debuts

techSep 8, 2026521,435

Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney released the first teaser for Musk, a nearly four-hour, four-year investigative documentary that examines the rise and controversial legacy of tech billionaire Elon Musk. The film traces Musk’s roles as CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter and asks how an unelected individual came to wield significant political influence. At the Venice Film Festival premiere Gibney said many people were too frightened to speak publicly about Musk, and when asked how dangerous Musk is to democracies he answered "Extremely." The documentary includes on-screen allegations such as former MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair saying Musk texted he wanted a "legion of children before the civil war." The teaser and festival screenings have prompted wide critical attention and set expectations for a long-form, investigative portrait that will reach wider audiences after its festival run.

mtsw

@mtsw.bsky.social

I'm really looking forward to this. One thing that makes Gibney uniquely perfect to direct this is that in GOING CLEAR he's already navigated making a critical documentary about the only entity on earth that's even more aggressively litigious than Musk

43733d ago

Aaron Greenspan14

At this point I don't think Scientology is more aggressively litigious than Musk. Scientology has never, for example, sued for the right to make and distribute child pornography while also going after its critics. It just goes after its critics.

Schooley9

Has Musk done preemptive spin on it?

C C Humphrey5

Can't wait, and hope it causes Musk to flip out

Witamy Paçzki5

I watched "Going Clear" when it first came out with my neighbors. We smoked a little weed (do not recommend) and when it was all over, I literally felt as tripped out by how INSANE the story was, that it was like when I used to do LSD occasionally back in college. It fried my brain.

S Peter Davis1

So many dismissed lawsuits incoming

e.w. niedermeyer

@niedermeyer.online

"How dangerous is Elon Musk to the world's democracies?" Gibney is asked. "Extremely," he answers, in a single word.

29432d ago

e.w. niedermeyer176

Gibney says that DOGE's "superadmin" access to US government data on citizens could be used to manipulate future elections in a manner that he compares to "Cambridge Analytica on steroids"

TallFroGuy - Shape Judger5

i don’t know who this man is but i like that blue

🗽LOLGOP🗽

@thefarce.org

I have a lot of hope that this documentary will do the work of exposing Musk, which Democrats won't.

12332d ago

🗽LOLGOP🗽33

As someone working on my own documentary connecting Musk to the larger attack on democracy over the last 60 years, which he appropriated in the same way he did EVs & space, I hope Gibney makes even that ambition irrelevant. I'm doing it because I thought no one else would. stopthetrillionaires.com

Monde Boeuf1

A cartoon version of all the ludicrous promises Musk has made over the years: www.patreon.com/noneofthisis...

David Rothschild

@davmicrot.bsky.social

I hope biographer Walter "Musk is the Great Man of our time" Isaacson and NYT"s Jeremy "what [Musk] stands for remains largely unclear" Peters are both forced to watch this documentary, then beg for our forgiveness.

5931d ago

Jesse Hawken

@jessehawken.bsky.social

“Hi I’m Alex Gibney and I have a 4 hour documentary for HBO about Musk” “Hi I’m Luca Guadagnino and I made a movie about Sam Altman that Amazon refused to release” “Hi I’m Nathan Fielder and I have a surprise 3 hour documentary about Elizabeth Holmes next month” (all eyes turn to Aaron Sorkin) “Hi”

6431d ago

Jesse Hawken46

Sorkin: “Hi I’m Aaron Sorkin and I made a sequel to The Social Network that takes place 5 years ago”

I Need a Cocktail1

This is like a cursed @midnightpals.bsky.social post.

Quoting this

Roz3

Hi I’m Johnmy Knoxville and welcome to Marc Andreessen‘s jackass

Scott Horton

@robertscotthorton.bsky.social

The best—and most important—documentary of 2026. Gibney’s excellent film covers a lot of ground in its extraordinary story, although we don’t get to hear about the mysterious process that changed a balding youngster into a follicularly unchallenged mature man. Musk is a uniquely disquieting baseball

3131d ago

Scott Horton10

capped figure, grinning and giggling and smirking on a thousand sycophantic podcasts like a modern, hyper-evolved version of Anthony Trollope’s wealthy charlatan Augustus Melmotte in The Way We Live Now. But given Musk’s boyish love of space travel and sci-fi, Gibney wittily compares him to the hero

FNU LNU1

Was the Faustian bargain Hell toupee?

Lady Bee Middlemast-Neal

@mistyswoman.bsky.social

#SpotTheScammer @gwynee.bsky.social claims to be "Founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX CEO and product architect of Tesla E" & Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of SpaceX - so, presumably an amalgam of Elon Musk & Gwynne Shotwell. Bravo. HTF does that work?

3432d ago

Deborah Lynn

@mrsdeborahlynn.bsky.social

www.reuters.com/business/med... Many people were too frightened to speak publicly about Elon Musk, director Alex Gibney said, as he unveiled his documentary about the billionaire at the Venice Film Festival. Film questions how an unelected person came to wield such sway over politics.

2231d ago

Sleepin Dogo

@sleepindogo.bsky.social

Here's the Alex Gibney, Ashley St. Claire, and Zoe Schiffer thirty-minute interview at the "MUSK" documentary premiere: $TSLA $SPCX bsky.app/profile/reut...

3432d ago

Aparna Nair

@disabilitystor1.bsky.social

Dont think I have the stomach to sit through this Musk documentary www.theguardian.com/film/2026/se...

Musk knew with a disconcerting degree of certainty that Trump would re-elected

In the film, St Clair describes the events of Trump’s election in November 2024. Musk, she tells Gibney, had a “degree of certainty” about the results before they came in that “I had never seen before”. He told her that he would “unleash the anomaly in the matrix” and that “we have 10,000 lasers in space”. Gibney leaves that comment hanging.

The godfather of AI is worried Musk might rig the next election

2531d ago

Not the Guy

@notnotnuanced.bsky.social

the same people who are like ermmmm why are we platforming elizabeth holmes are 100% going to watch that boring ass alex gibney elon musk documentary

3531d ago

Not the Guy 27

if it presents me with easily digestible information that i can take a clear moral side on by someone who makes documentaries off an assembly line…that’s good but if it lets me sit with feelings of discomfort and confront things i’d rather not without providing easy answers…guess what, that’s bad!

Mr. Creeper1

Me, who's going to watch both solely because I love Fielder and Gibney.

Nina1

and the rupert murdoch-approved rupert murdoch movie

Tyler Coates1

i’m on my way to see it now 🙂

Chris Nagano

@charliesaito22.bsky.social

A documentary that reportedly reveals the real deal about Elon Musk www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...

1532d ago

JustSayin

@justsayin-fromx.bsky.social

ELON MUSK BELONGS IN PRISON WITH TRUMP FOR HIS ELECTION CRIMES AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!

2031d ago

Carolyn Harriston5

And he probably knows this. But because he's a billionaire he thinks he can whittle his way out of whatever life throws at him. Because he's a billionaire.