Days before its premiere, Elon Musk’s legal team issued a formal notice to the creators of a new four-hour documentary about him. The notice claims that the film contains defamatory content regarding the billionaire entrepreneur.
The film premiered Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival to a lengthy standing ovation and strong reviews. The letter puts not only Gibney and Jigsaw on notice but everyone involved in the film’s release, including HBO, Bleecker Street and Universal. Gibney’s documentaries have often delved into powerful groups, including the Church of Scientology, the Enron corporation and Israel-Iran spy wars in “Zero Days.
It also says Gibney refused to fact-check the film with the world’s richest man or the people close to him. Trade bible Variety called it a “lacerating portrait,” while Deadline said the “damning” film had “thrashed” Musk as “petty, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, cruel. He won an Academy Award for best documentary for “Taxi to the Dark Side,” which tackles the US military’s interrogation practices in Afghanistan. On the grounds that litigation is “reasonably anticipated,” the letter from Musk’s lawyer orders the filmmakers to preserve every trace of the project, including footage, interview transcripts, research files and internal communications. Musk has spent several days attacking Gibney on X, the platform he owns, calling the film a “hit piece that misses” and dismissing it as boring.
