Alex Gibney’s long-awaited documentary on Elon Musk is finally finished. Titled simply Musk, the film will premiere at the Venice Film Festival this September.
Fitting for a man recently crowned the world’s first trillionaire, the project is massive in scale. The final cut runs exactly 232 minutes, falling just shy of the four-hour mark.
A Dangerous Technocrat
Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera announced the selection in Rome on Thursday. While unveiling the 2026 festival lineup, he flashed a wry smile and urged the audience to appreciate the sheer volume of material Gibney managed to pack into the film.
“[Gibney] traces the whole career — the contradictions, and the conditioning power that is centralized in the hands of a single man,” Barbera said.
The festival chief did not mince words regarding the subject matter. He described Musk as a “genius of capitalist entrepreneurship, but also a dangerous technocrat, with no moral scruples.”
A Story That Refused to End
The Oscar-winning director first announced the project in March 2023. At the time, Gibney promised a “definitive and unvarnished examination” of the man behind Tesla, SpaceX, and X.
Gibney reportedly delivered a finished cut in early 2025, but reality quickly forced him back into the editing room. Musk threw his immense financial backing behind Donald Trump’s presidential run and secured a de facto leadership role at the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
As controversial headlines piled up, the film’s backers—HBO Documentary Films and Bleecker Street—issued a joint statement last summer regarding the delays. “The film continues to grow in scope as the story evolves,” they admitted.
The plot thickened yet again last month. SpaceX launched the largest public offering in history, raising $75 billion at a staggering $1.8 trillion valuation. This record-shattering IPO officially minted Musk as a trillionaire.
Clashing on Social Media
Musk has not stayed quiet about the impending film. When news of the project broke in 2023, the tech mogul took to X to complain, declaring the documentary a “hit piece.”
Gibney fired back immediately, replying: “How would you know?”
The public spat escalated shortly after when Musk tweeted, “Gibney is a douche.” The veteran filmmaker offered a simple, single-word retort: “douché.”
The Road to Theaters
Bleecker Street will drop Musk in U.S. theaters on Oct. 16. HBO Documentary Films holds the North American television and streaming rights, while Black Bear is managing international sales.
The documentary was produced by Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, alongside Zhang Xin’s Closer Media, Double Agent, and Anonymous Content.
Gibney has spent 30 years dismantling powerful figures and institutions on film. He took home an Oscar for 2007’s Taxi to the Dark Side, exposed Silicon Valley fraud in The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, and earned widespread acclaim for his Scientology deep-dive Going Clear.
He is also a Venice veteran, having premiered his portrait of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Citizen K, on the Lido in 2019.
The 83rd Venice Film Festival runs from Sept. 2-12.
