--- title: "Elon Musk Is So Mad About This New Documentary That He’s Threatening Legal Action" description: "Elon Musk is now threatening legal action over a new documentary against him which he rages is a \"hit piece.\"" date: "2026-09-11" modified: "2026-09-11" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore.md" url: "https://futurism.com/future-society/elon-musk-documentary-legal-action" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" --- # Elon Musk Is So Mad About This New Documentary That He’s Threatening Legal Action ![Elon Musk speaks at a rally for US President Donald Trump.]() *ANGELA WEISS / AFP / Getty / Futurism* Does Elon Musk, who claims to be so smart [that chess bores him](), understand what the Streisand effect is? We're skeptical, because he's now threatening to sue the Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney over his new documentary about the controversial business magnate — which Musk has been fuming is a "hit piece." The film, simply titled "Musk," is a four hour examination of the centibillionaire's life, from his upbringing in South Africa to his start during the dot-com boom to his foray into politics. But it's a documentary, not a hagiography, and Musk can't stand that it's taking a critical eye to his character. In a letter sent to Gibney's Jigsaw Productions, Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro accused the director of defamation, alleging that his film spreads false claims about Musk supposedly rigging the 2024 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. ("Rigging" probably goes too far, but Musk [did shell out]() nearly $300 million to back Trump's election campaign.) The complaint stems from a scene showing Ashley St. Clair — a former right-wing influencer who secretly had a child with Musk but fell out with him after going public about their affair — describing texts she received from Musk in which he cryptically says he's "optimistic" about Trump winning because "tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix." Musk, attempting to clarify, added in a follow up message that he has "over 10 thousand lasers in space." (*NPR* [reported]() that it obtained and authenticated the texts in question.) Spiro argues that this amounts to defamation, because it promotes a [debunked conspiracy theory]() that Musk used his Starlink satellites to beam in votes for Trump. "You are therefore 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," he wrote in the strongly-worded letter. Musk has had a bone to pick with Gibney ever since the film was announced in 2023, when he [instinctively called it]() a "hit piece" despite there barely being any details about it at the time. Gibney [retorted]() to Musk: "How would you know?" Evidently, Musk still hasn't gotten over it. As the documentary neared its world premier at Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, Musk reignited his attacks, making at least five different posts on X deriding it. "Alex Gibney is obviously going to make the most convincingly terrible hit piece on me that he can possibly think of," he [wrote]() in one of his paranoid rants. "He's a douchebag to his core and, in his own words, incredibly biased against me." Musk has a well known proclivity for trying to silence his critics, but the odds of his lawsuit working out aren't spectacular. Defamation, in the US, is infamously difficult to prove. St. Clair certainly doesn't appeared to be rattled either, calling Musk's legal threats "a joke." "They are more likely to colonize Mars than win a defamation case against Alex Gibney," she told *NPR* in a statement. "Alex Spiro is sending fairy dust letters with obtuse legalese." **More on industrialists:** [*Elon Musk Has Been Calling Women “Breeders” Since His First Marriage, His First Wife Says*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()