Alex Gibney premieres four-hour Elon Musk documentary at TIFF following legal threats

Festival screening and runtime

Alex Gibney presented the North American premiere of his documentary "Musk" at the Toronto International Film Festival on 13 September 2026, following its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival earlier in the month. The documentary runs three hours and 45 minutes, with an added 10-minute intermission, and is scheduled for theatrical release on 16 October 2026. Gibney initially conceived the project as a two-hour film before the second presidential term of Donald Trump. He expanded the scope to nearly four hours after Elon Musk endorsed Trump and joined his administration as a close adviser. The narrative tracks Musk from his early dotcom ventures and his purchase of a $1 million McLaren to his leadership at Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter, charting his path to becoming the world's first trillionaire.

Legal threats and satellite claims

Musk and his legal team reacted with public hostility toward the production. Musk's attorney, Alex Spiro, sent a letter to Gibney's company, Jigsaw Productions, threatening a defamation lawsuit. The dispute focuses on a text exchange featured in the film between Musk and Ashley St. Clair, a former partner and mother of one of his children. In the message regarding the 2024 presidential election, Musk told St. Clair that he felt optimistic because "tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix" and stated that he had over 10,000 lasers in space. Spiro alleged that the documentary misrepresents facts by insinuating that Musk used Starlink satellites to influence the election outcome for Trump.

Rebuttal and director response

Musk criticized the film on his platform X, labelling it a "false film" and a "boring... hit piece," while accusing Gibney of compiling a hit list of biased sources. Gibney confirmed during a keynote in Toronto that his team conducted extensive fact-checking and legal reviews, but received no response to multiple formal interview requests sent to Musk. Instead of an in-person appearance, the film includes a simulated interview with Musk in a leather jacket. Jigsaw Productions defended the work under First Amendment protections for fact-based reporting on public figures. Gibney addressed the public response and the purpose of the documentary during his festival appearances.

“I hope it's the beginning of the discussion for all of us, not only citizens in the United States, but citizens of the world, to begin to take back power from these tech oligarchs who seem to be desirous of running the world for themselves.”

Content and source interviews

The documentary features on-camera interviews with individuals close to Musk's career and personal life. Among the participants are Musk's father, Errol Musk, former Tesla chief executive Martin Eberhard, and Ashley St. Clair. Gibney compared the trajectory of Musk's corporate career to earlier subjects he covered in documentaries on Enron and Elizabeth Holmes, describing the narrative pattern as that of a confidence man whose wealth stems from inflated stock valuations. The film also examines Musk's activities with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and his political connections in Washington.

“This is really a film about how absolute power corrupts. Or perhaps how power reveals one's character. There's a question as to whether or not Musk was always going to go in this direction or whether the power corrupted him.”