Filmmaker Alex Gibney debuted his nearly four-hour documentary Musk at the Venice Film Festival. The film features interviews with Ashley St. Clair, Justine Musk, and tech figures, examining Elon Musk’s political alignment, the DOGE initiative, and platform algorithmic changes.
Alex Gibney’s Documentary ‘Musk’ Debuts at the Venice Film Festival
Director Alex Gibney premiered his expansive documentary Musk in Venice, Italy, presenting a critical look at the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive. The Oscar-winning filmmaker consulted lawyers before going too far down the road and got the sign-off to use a large-headed avatar representing the tech billionaire, alongside extensive archival footage and contemporary interviews. Because Musk dismissed the project as a hit piece during production, he declined to participate while Musk himself wasn’t interviewed. One of Gibney’s most successful theorems is that the richest man in the world likely believes we all live in a simulation, where he acts as the first-person shooter and everyone else is an NPC.
Running nearly four hours, the documentary traces Musk’s traumatic childhood—including an interview with his father, Errol Musk—and his early days in Silicon Valley through his tenure leading Tesla and SpaceX simultaneously. The film also covers his international right-wing political involvement and his work with the Department of Government Efficiency alongside the second Donald Trump administration. Gibney explained that the project was going to be a much shorter film before Musk wrapped himself in Trump’s campaign. Gibney stated that he thinks Musk is “extremelydangerous to democracy, raising alarms about the information the
DOGE boys” gathered on U.S. citizens with unfettered access to government agencies.
Ashley St. Clair on the $40 Million Offer and Global Influence
Ashley St. Clair, once a conservative influencer who shares a child with Musk, appears in the film to discuss their relationship, his character, and the nondisclosure agreement she was asked, and refused, to sign to guarantee paternity support. She revealed that she was offered the opportunity not to speak for $40 million. St. Clair earlier this year also sued Musk’s AI company, saying its Grok chatbot allowed users to generate sexually exploitive deepfake images of her that have caused her humiliation and emotional distress.
St. Clair argues that the billionaire exerts a dangerous level of influence on the global stage, stating that she believes he’s stoking fires and causing deliberate division that could be catastrophic if it’s not regulated or contained. She points to his satellite network with 10,000 lasers in space pointing at Earth, his insistence on colonizing Mars, and his continuing erratic behavior. She sums up the feeling you get after watching Musk with a stark warning: Elon is a nuke.
Beyond personal accounts, the documentary features insights from Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard, his first wife Justine Musk—who chokes up recalling their early days reading books together—neurologist Sam Harris, tech reporter Kara Swisher, and former USAID Administrator Samantha Power.
Algorithmic Shifts and the Department of Government Efficiency
The film examines platform governance following Musk’s takeover of X and the manipulation of the algorithm. Gibney stated that he didn’t properly understand when he started the film how Musk tweaked algorithms at Twitter to, in fact, prioritize vitriol and hate over the town square. “Wired” reporter Zoë Schiffer, who also appears in the film, added that he has tweaked the algorithm both to suppress mainstream journalism and then to augment some of the more inflammatory comments and voices on that platform.
The documentary also chronicles the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a cost-cutting effort dreamed up by Musk and the incoming Trump administration. As the documentary makes clear, DOGE failed almost as quickly as it started, but not before bulldozing into 22 of the regulatory agencies who were investigating Musk’s various companies. DOGE specifically fell apart when Musk recoiled at Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill,
which he plainly saw as representing more government overreach and overspending. Musk later went on to claim he was starting the “America Party,” a third party to challenge Trump.
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