“Musk” international distributor wavered on the documentary’s global rollout amid legal threats from trillionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, according to its director Alex Gibney.
The Oscar-winning documentarian did not detail his internal discussions with Universal for his latest project, but indicated that the distributor’s concerns went beyond just “legal clearances.”
Speaking with the New York Times in an interview published Sunday, Gibney reflected on his four-hour examination of the world’s richest man, now in select theaters via Bleecker Street, and confirmed when asked point-blank that Universal was stirred by Musk’s “formal legal notice” in September.
“So it wasn’t about legal clearances?” the Times’ Nicole Sperling asked.
“You can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Gibney said, adding, “We just had a meeting with them, and we’re talking very concretely about a release plan.”
Of their alleged hesitancy to move forward, Gibney said, “Were they concerned that in this political environment, a film about the world’s richest man was problematic? Maybe, but you have to ask them.”
The filmmaker’s account came one month after Universal recommitted to releasing “Musk” despite threats of legal action, saying in a statement Sept. 17 that “plans have not changed” after The Hollywood Reporter alleged that Universal was “backing away from releasing the feature in markets outside of North America.”
Asked for additional comment on the matter by the Times, Universal repeated the same statement from last month, according to the paper: “We’ve always been committed to releasing this film, and our plans haven’t changed.”
The film, which Musk slammed as “hit piece” in his Sept. 3 legal notice to Jigsaw Productions, received widespread acclaim upon its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. With a 10-minute intermission included, “Musk” explores the rise of the world’s richest man from the son of an emerald mine investor to a Silicon Valley giant and, later, the owner of Twitter/X and Donald Trump’s one-time confidante as he shut down government agencies and fired thousands of federal employees through the upstart government agency DOGE.
“Musk” hit limited screens in the U.S. on Friday and expands nationwide Oct. 16. It currently holds a 97% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and was reviewed by TheWrap’s Ben Croll as a “punishing” doc — but one essential to uncovering one of the world’s most powerful men.
“Split into nearly 20 chapters, the sprawling film toggles between the personal and professional, revealing, to little surprise, a callous partner and parent while detailing at length Tesla’s corporate malfeasance,” Croll wrote. “And that’s all before a 10-minute intermission, which gives way to an even more scabrous second half. Picking up in 2020, ‘Musk’ finds a man broken by the pandemic who then reshapes our shared world in his own jagged self image.”
