Alex Gibney has built a career out of documentaries that take apart Enron and the Church of Scientology. His latest subject is the richest man on the planet, and that film has drawn a legal threat before it reaches theaters. Musk premiered at the Venice Film Festival to a five-minute standing ovation, and Elon Musk is now threatening to sue.
Attorney Alex Spiro sent a formal legal notice to a producer at Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, according to The Hollywood Reporter, accusing the Oscar winner of building the film around a predetermined conclusion. The notice names HBO, Bleecker Street, and Universal as well, as Spiro reserved the right to take action against anyone involved in releasing the film.
At the center of the complaint is an exchange with Ashley St. Clair, a former MAGA influencer who had a child with Elon Musk. She describes texts sent before the 2024 election in which he said he was optimistic about a Trump win, writing that they would “unleash the anomaly in the matrix.” Musk then reportedly mentioned more than 10,000 lasers in space.
Elon Musk has not actually seen the film he is threatening to sue over
Musk has spent the past few days attacking Gibney on X, calling the documentary a hit piece and saying the director has zero integrity. Neither he nor Spiro has watched it. The film runs nearly four hours and features his first ex-wife, his father Errol Musk, and several former business partners and critics.
Spiro’s main objection is the suggestion that Starlink was used to influence the count, a conspiracy theory that spread after the 2024 election. Election officials in Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin confirmed the network was not used to tabulate or upload votes. Spiro argued that Musk was referring to Starlink’s laser links between satellites, not election infrastructure.
Starlink has pulled Musk into political fights before, including his Pentagon clash over Starlink and its military use. However, none of those disputes touched vote counting, and cybersecurity researchers found no evidence the 2024 results were altered.
Musk’s real influence on the election was enormous and entirely legal. Federal Election Commission filings show he spent more than $290 million backing Donald Trump and Republicans, much of it through America PAC, which targeted turnout in battleground states. Gibney has said that involvement is what pushed the project well past its planned two hour length.
Jigsaw has defended the film as a fact-driven examination of Musk and invoked the First Amendment, noting that Musk has called himself a free speech absolutist. Spiro says the team repeatedly asked to present facts through fact checking. However, Gibney says Musk declined to be interviewed. Musk would face a high bar in court, and as a public figure, he would generally need to show actual malice.
Bleecker Street releases Musk in US theaters on October 16, and HBO holds the streaming rights, with no lawsuit filed so far.
Published: Sep 11, 2026 10:00 am