Alex Gibney’s documentary 'Musk' premiered at the Venice Film Festival, examining Elon Musk's career, political dealings, and personal controversies.
The film alleges that Tesla's driver-assistance systems caused dozens of fatalities, claiming Musk actively misrepresented their technical safety limits.
The documentary asserts Musk strategically allied with Donald Trump and right-wing leaders to blunt regulatory scrutiny launched during the Biden administration.
The documentary "Musk" premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 8 and screened for reporters in New York the same day. Directed by Alex Gibney of "Citizen K" and due in theatres on October 16, the film says Tesla’s driver-assistance systems have been tied to dozens of fatalities and argues that Musk misrepresented their limits.
The film also argues that Musk moved closer to President Donald Trump in an effort to head off federal probes into his companies that began during the Biden administration. In one of the documentary’s sharpest lines, Ashley St. Clair says, “Elon went pretty hardcore Trump.” She adds, “Trump is a much easier president to buy.”
Musk, 55, is not involved in the documentary and had earlier asserted that Gibney was making a “hit piece” on him.
Tesla And Politics
The film casts Musk’s business and political moves as tightly linked. It says he courted right-wing politicians around the world to secure business incentives for Tesla and SpaceX, while his support for Trump served another purpose—blunting federal scrutiny of his companies.
That scrutiny, the documentary says, began during the Biden administration. It places those investigations alongside allegations about Tesla’s driver-assistance systems, arguing that questions over safety and oversight sit at the centre of Musk’s rise.
The film also points to Musk’s growing reach over data and the state. It says his 2022 acquisition of X, formerly Twitter, and his role in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, gave him access to Americans’ personal data. The documentary says DOGE used many of Musk’s young staffers to cut funding across government agencies.
St. Clair Claims
St. Clair is central to the film. The 28-year-old former conservative influencer says she dated Musk for two years and shares a 1-year-old son, Romulus, with him.
She tells Gibney that she texted Musk on the night of the 2024 US presidential election. “I say, ‘I think we’re gonna win,’ and he said, ‘I knew that hours ago. We have the best real-time data,'” St. Clair alleges. She adds, “The degree of certainty he had, I had never seen before.”
Another alleged text exchange shown in the documentary turns to Starlink. St. Clair says Musk told her he had big plans for the satellite internet service. She says she asked him not to go into detail because she feared she would be “deposed,” and that Musk replied, “Very wise.”
“What is Elon building?” St. Clair tells Gibney. “What are his goals? What are his actual motivations? Do we even know this man at all?”
The documentary also details an alleged confidentiality dispute. St. Clair says Musk’s right-hand man Jared Birchall pressed her to sign an NDA over Musk’s paternity of Romulus. She says the proposed deal included a $15 million lump sum and $100,000 a month for 21 years, but that the $15 million was withdrawn when she refused to sign and she instead received $20,000 a month in child support.
“Jared was very adversarial,” St. Clair says. “I don’t know how to categorize someone who degrades and borderline threatens a woman who is freshly postpartum. … This was financial retaliation for speaking out. It was almost as if [Musk] didn’t show a certain side of himself until after I had our baby.”
The film adds more claims about Musk’s views on family. St. Clair says she later received messages from other young girls. “I was getting messages from other young girls that Elon was [messaging], offering them children,” St. Clair says. She adds, “He told me that he wanted to use surrogates because it was the only way we could create ‘a legion of children before the civil war.’”
Family And Identity
Justine Musk, Musk’s first wife, is another major voice in the film. Through extensive interviews, she describes an eight-year marriage in which, she says, Musk often made her feel “insignificant” and spoke to her as if she were one of his employees.
“I learned the term ‘gaslighting’ through my relationship with Elon,” Justine tells Gibney. Recalling their wedding dance, she says, “Elon told me, ‘I am the alpha in this relationship.’ … He was constantly remarking on the ways he found me lacking.”
The documentary places those personal claims alongside Musk’s wider family story. It says Musk has 14 children with four women and notes that one child, Nevada, died as an infant.
It then turns to his daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson, now 22. In 2024, Musk claimed she had also died and said she had been “killed by the woke mind virus” when she transitioned. Justine says in the film, “We actually went through the actual death of an actual child – what’s happening here is Jenna is growing up.”
After their daughter came out as trans, “Elon never tried to repair things. That’s not in his nature. … Elon told me, ‘Make sure Jenna knows how much I’ll always love her.’ And then the next day, he cut off her health insurance.”
Musk Response
Musk does not appear in the documentary. He was not involved in its making and had previously asserted that Gibney was making a “hit piece” on him.
There was no fresh official response at the premiere to St. Clair’s latest allegations, tribune.com.pk reported. Representatives and attorneys for Musk and Birchall did not respond to requests for comment, the outlet reported. Elon Musk, Tesla and Jared Birchall also did not issue an official response to the specific claims presented at the Venice Film Festival premiere in September 2026.
