Director Alex Gibney Explains His Unconventional New Elon Musk Film
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When filmmaker and director Alex Gibney first set out to make his new documentary, “Musk,” he was somewhat of a fan of the billionaire. But as he explained in a recent sit-down with LA Times editor Matt Brennan, digging into the realities behind his tech companies quickly changed the project’s trajectory.
What was originally meant to be a portrait of 21st-century economic power steadily evolved into an investigation of political influence, tracing how a CEO’s carefully crafted narrative became directly entangled with the American presidency.
Elon Musk and Elizabeth Holmes are unwitting film fest stars as documentaries about problematic tech titans have dominated news coming out of prestigious film festivals.
Capturing that narrative wasn’t easy. Since the billionaire refused to sit for an interview, Gibney had to get creative. The production team built a CGI simulation of Musk placed in a gamer chair, syncing an AI program to actual audio from his past interviews.
During his research, Gibney realized that his subject is highly skilled at shaping his own reality.
“At this point, I think he’s gone from being a liar, somebody who has to keep track of the truth to being what Sam Harris calls a bullshitter, where you just make stuff up and through the force and confidence of your personality, you make it so,” said Alex Gibney, Director of “Musk.”
The conversation also touched on the concept of “noble cause corruption.” Gibney explained how convincing yourself that you are saving the world can lead to dangerous justifications.
“Once you decide that you’re a force for good, you’re entitled to bend the rules. Not just a little bit, now you bend the rules a little bit more and maybe a little bit more. And now with all the ill-gained stock profits that you’ve got, you can buy the presidency of the United States.”
— Alex Gibney, Director of ‘Musk’
To fully capture this shift into the political arena, HBO pushed Gibney to expand the film’s runtime. This extra runway allowed him to document Musk’s direct involvement with Donald Trump’s campaign, a late stage pivot the director believes was motivated by legal self-preservation rather than personal ideology.
Musk opens in theaters starting October 9 from Bleecker Street.
