New Musk Documentary Asks a Blunt Question: Was He Always Like This?

A new four-hour documentary about Elon Musk premiered at the Venice Film Festival and opens in U.S. theaters October 16. Director Alex Gibney splits the story into two halves: the Silicon Valley climb through Zip2, PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla, and then the pandemic years, when the world watched him change almost overnight. The film’s answer to“what happened to him”is simple and uncomfortable. Nothing happened. His ex-wife Justine Musk says the man the world met in 2020 was the man she always knew.

Musk never agreed to an interview, so the film leans on archival footage and an A.I.-enhanced avatar of him, a choice that has people arguing about whether it’s clever or just plain odd. Conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair also appears, describing a two-year relationship and claiming Musk cut her child support by 60 percent after she criticized him. Between those accounts and the rise-and-fall arc, Gibney builds a case that this isn’t one man’s story at all.

That’s where the film lands its biggest punch. It argues Musk is a symptom of something bigger: a culture that worships founders, forgives their worst behavior, and lets wealth concentrate until a single person holds more power than most nations. Whether you cheer for him or can’t stand him, the question underneath is worth sitting with. Do we create these figures, or do they create themselves? Tell us what you think in the comments.