Musk makes a compelling subject for Alex Gibney’s darkly unnerving portrait of power without apparent limits.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News

Did we need a nearly four-hour documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney (“Taxi to the Dark Side”) to demonstrate that Elon Musk is a monster? Not really, but it certainly ties all the reasons why into a neat package. Only recently have we learned that Ukraine’s access to Musk’s Starlink service has been restricted, severely curtailing the country’s ability to continue to fight the war criminal Putin. How could Gibney (“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”) make such a film if Musk was one of the powerful human beings on Earth due to his vast personal wealth and political connections, including Donald Trump, who put Musk in charge of DOGE after Musk spent $300 million getting Trump re-elected? Well, for one, Musk can’t sue Gibney without triggering a discovery process that would let Gibney subpoena Musk’s internal documents, so Gibney is reasonably confident he will not be sued. But if I were him, I’d be a bit nervous standing next to one of those incredibly ugly and seemingly designed-by-the-insane Cybertrucks.

Still, making “Musk” was an act of great courage. In this age of spineless tech bros such as Trump suck-ups Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, Gibney dares to stand before Musk, the mad scientist of DOGE, and say, “Do your worst.” For this reason, I am here to say that “Musk” is the most important film of 2026, a film that captures the totally insane moment we live in and rubs it in our collective face. For those who did not recognize Musk for what he was at the start of his emergence on the world stage, here it is. By using his vast coffers to help Trump get re-elected, Musk made himself the most important man in the Republican Party. Based on his midterm spending, he still is.

Gibney, who narrates the 235-minute film, confesses that he once owned Tesla-made solar panels and a Tesla Powerwall (he has divested himself of them). Musk, who took the Wachowski siblings’ “The Matrix” (1999) so seriously that he believes we are living in a “simulation,” appears as an AI-generated image that speaks to us at intervals in the film. As he has in the past, Gibney has dug through the public record on Musk and those who have reported on him, including interviews (Musk did not cooperate with Gibney and called the film a “hit piece”). Musk, whose fixation with the letter X is as legendary as it is childish, comes across in the film as supremely arrogant, which might also explain how he became the world’s wealthiest person with a little help from a rich South African father. Although he describes himself as an “engineer,” stories about him label him as a “businessman.” He fought COVID restrictions and kept his factory open during the lockdown.

We hear from his first wife, Justine Musk, who describes his controlling manner and how he uses money and lawyers to punish those who challenge him, including family members. We meet Musk’s OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis, who has had four children with Musk via in vitro fertilization. Remarkably, influencer Ashley St. Clair, who recently had a child with Musk, agreed to be interviewed by Gibney at severe risk of retribution because of her description of how Musk treats her and their child. St. Clair describes Musk as “Gatling gun of sperm” and later “a nuke.” Among those interviewed by Gibney is journalist Kara Swisher, one of the earliest to report on him for The Wall Street Journal, who has described Musk as a “one-man wrecking ball.”

Using DOGE, did Musk deliberately target federal bodies such as the National Labor Relations Board and USDA because they were actively investigating Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink? Did Tesla’s self-driving boasts lead to the deaths of owners and innocent bystanders? According to Justine Musk, Musk has disowned his transgender daughter and cut off her health care benefits. Musk has thousands of satellites in low orbit around the Earth, we are told, providing internet service to many. Is Musk a real-life James Bond villain, bent upon world domination? Cue John Barry.

Musk eagerly wants white people to have more children because…you know. His haircut becomes more and more Waffen-SS. I wasn’t as enamored of the depiction of Musk as a first-person shooter in a video game as he is portrayed several times or of the AI-generated Musk as Gibney is. But “Musk” is a must-see for anyone concerned about where our country is headed with men like Musk using their money to crush opponents and influence elections. Musk’s latest trick is funding extreme right-wing politicians in other countries such as… Germany. According to Musk, “Empathy is a weakness.” Before you can ask—”How could any human being say such a thing?”—see this movie. Here he is.

‘Musk’

Rating: R for language and brief violent content.

Cast: Elon Musk, Justine Musk, Ashley St. Clair

Director: Alex Gibney

Writers: Gibney, Michael J. Palmer

Running Time: 3 hours, 52 minutes

Where to Watch: In theaters

Grade: A-