I think it’s fair to say that Alex Gibney, director of the new documentary Musk—a nearly four-hour prosecution of the world’s richest man—sees his quarry as both devilish and foolish, a “confidence man” with a talent for stock pumping and résumé inflation. These are all generically undesirable qualities, for sure, but when cohabitating inside the mind of a trillionaire they become terrifying.
Gibney is arguably the most famous documentarian in the country, and I don’t envy anyone, regardless of their bank balance, who ends up in his crosshairs. (If you’re somehow unfamiliar with his IMDb page, he’s the guy behind Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room; Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief; We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks; The Armstrong Lie; etc., etc.)
Many of Gibney’s broad criticisms of Musk seem to me uncontroversial: the personal foibles, the verbal recklessness, the boundless confidence that, when coupled with wealth and power, inevitably curdles into narcissism. He grants Musk’s many successes but excoriates him for the manner in which they were achieved.
But don’t despair: Gibney and I disagree on plenty when it comes to Musk, and when I spoke to him earlier this week we mixed it up on a bunch of issues, including a few of the film’s darker implications that struck me as...a bit off.
Because Musk is being released in theaters today, we’ve shifted this week’s release schedule by a few days. And a new written piece is forthcoming, which will, in part, cover America’s other most famous documentarian...
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About 20 minutes in my desire to see the movie keeps going down. I'm no fan of Elon's political turn but he is quite obviously a genius, as measured by his actual accomplishments.
Elon conned me into buying the best car I’ve ever owned, that son of a bitch.