- A new teaser trailer for the forthcoming Musk documentary has landed
- It features footage of SpaceX rockets and spicy quotes about Musk
- Musk will be in theaters from October 16 before an HBO release
A new teaser trailer for the documentary Musk has landed on YouTube ahead of the much-anticipated film’s premiere today at the Venice Film Festival.
The 48-second teaser (below) provides a taster of the documentary’s likely divisive reflections on the world’s richest man. It contrasts quotes calling him “the real-life Iron Man” and “the greatest capitalist in history” with some less complementary reactions — with one stating that “in a science fiction novel, he would not be the hero”.
The documentary’s Academy-Award winning director, Alex Gibney, has a strong track record with pieces about powerful people and corporations, having previously made classics like Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.
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His Musk documentary has been over three years in the making, with Gibney revealing that he’d started work on it back in March 2023. Elon Musk isn’t particularly happy about the documentary’s release, posting on X back on August 6 that “it’s a hit piece” and that “Gibney is incapable of anything else”.
Musk says director is trying to ‘bore people to death’
Aside from its polarizing subject, the Musk documentary is notable for another reason – its run time is almost four hours. That’s something that Musk himself also poked fun at on X, stating “is he trying to bore people to death?”
The trailer doesn’t give a huge amount away about its conclusions, but Alex Gibney did reveal a little more in a chat with AP earlier this week. “In some ways it’s a simple story (with) a lot of complicated details,” he told AP.
“I think his genius, if there is a genius, is that he is not an inventor, he’s an investor. His genius is stock pumping,” he added. We can expect the documentary, like the trailer, to stir a lot of controversy then, particularly as it also delves into Musk’s relationship with Trump.
It’s a hit piece. Gibney is incapable of anything else. Also, 4 hours!! Is trying to bore people to death?August 6, 2026
So does Musk himself appear in the documentary, or did he try to prevent it from reaching screens? “He didn’t really except in so far as the fact that people were terribly afraid to speak to me on the record, or at least on camera,” Gibney told AP. “They were just terrified of Elon. And these were people in his companies. These were people who knew him well. These were supporters and critics,” he added.
The Musk documentary will be released theatrically in the US on October 16. There’s currently no confirmation of a UK release, but it’s also expected to stream on HBO Max later this year.
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