Bleecker Street has moved up the release of Alex Gibney’s searing, 225-minute documentary “Musk” by one week, putting it in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on October 9 with a nationwide expansion to follow.
The release date comes after the film 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 onetime confidante as he shut down government agencies and fired thousands of federal employees through the government agency DOGE.
At the center of the documentary, which Musk did not participate in, are interviews with his former romantic partners, most notably ex-wife Justine Musk and former conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair, the latter of whom called Musk a “nuke.”
“Here is work meant less for us than for posterity, an ongoing obituary for a world and a global order in palliative care,” TheWrap’s Ben Croll wrote in his review.
The doc’s premiere prompted a lengthy rant from Musk on X as well as a letter sent from his attorney, Alex Spiro, to Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions claiming that Musk’s team had reached out to Gibney multiple times to present his side of the story in the doc and was refused. The doc, which says it was denied a direct interview with Musk, instead uses an animated avatar of Musk that speaks actual quotes he has made in past public appearances.
“While we are ardent supporters of the First Amendment, and respect the reporting process, it has become abundantly clear that the motivations behind this piece are not the pursuit of truth, but something far different. This project did not begin as an inquiry. It began with a conclusion,” Spiro wrote.
“You are on notice, before release, that the insinuation is false, that the material refuting it is public, and that you chose not to be told the rest,” the letter continued.
October will be a big month for cinema that takes on the giants of tech. With this move, the New York/Los Angeles release of “Musk” will take place alongside Sony’s release of “The Social Reckoning,” Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up to “The Social Network” which examines Facebook’s influence on world politics, most notably the January 6 riots at the Capitol Building.
