Musk Threatens Legal Action Over Film About His Life

Elon Musk’s lawyers formally notified the producers of a new four-hour documentary about his life that the film defames the billionaire, according to information released this Thursday (09/10/2026) in U.S. media.

Shortly before its premiere last Tuesday, attorney Alex Spiro sent a letter to a producer at Jigsaw Productions in which he accuses Alex Gibney, an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, of building “Musk” around a predetermined conclusion.

In the letter, dated September 3, he also notes that Gibney refused to verify the facts of the film with the world’s richest man or with the people around him.

“This project did not begin as an investigation. It began with a conclusion,” Spiro wrote.

The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a prolonged standing ovation and highly favorable reviews.

Gibney traces the career and life of Musk, born in South Africa, from his years as a dot-com-era entrepreneur in Silicon Valley in the early 2000s to becoming the world’s first trillionaire.

He also delves into his personal life, including his difficult childhood and the 14 known children he has had with several women.

The trade magazine Variety called it a “scathing portrait,” while Deadline said the “devastating” film had “lambasted” Musk as “petty, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, cruel.”

The letter warns not only Gibney and Jigsaw, but everyone involved in the release of the film, including HBO, Bleecker Street and Universal.

“Conspiracy Theory”

It focuses in particular on a sequence that, according to Spiro, promotes a conspiracy theory according to which Musk knew early on election night 2024 that Trump had won because his Starlink satellites had been used to influence the result.

Jigsaw Productions responded in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter that scrutiny of powerful public figures is protected by the First Amendment.

This is something all Americans should defend, “including Elon Musk’s associates, who has proclaimed himself a ‘free speech absolutist,’” the statement added.

Gibney’s documentaries have often delved into powerful groups, including the Church of Scientology, the Enron corporation and the espionage wars between Israel and Iran in “Zero Days.”

He won an Oscar for best documentary for “Taxi to the Dark Side,” which addresses U.S. military interrogation practices in Afghanistan.

Musk has spent several days attacking Gibney on X, the platform he owns, calling the film a “miss that misses the mark” and dismissing it as boring.