What happened in this Culture story?

Director Alex Gibney says Elon Musk still hasn't spoken to him despite publicly attacking his four-hour documentary "Musk" and having lawyers threaten a defamation suit over it, and Gibney raised censorship concerns tied to HBO Max's parent's pending Paramount merger.

What is a key fact in this story? (1)

**Alex Gibney** said at TIFF on Sept. 13 that **Elon Musk** still hasn't contacted him despite publicly attacking the four-hour documentary "Musk," which premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month.

What is a key fact in this story? (2)

**Gibney** said he "reached out immediately" after Musk's complaints but Musk "clearly wasn't interested in talking"; during production his team made "so many formal outreaches" and received nothing back except Musk's remarks on X.

📎 SkimNews has covered Elon Musk 52+ times · see the file →

Gibney: Musk Silent Despite Threatening Defamation Suit — SkimNews

By Rolling Stone · Summarized & edited by Kapil Samant · 2026-09-14

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Alex Gibney said at TIFF on Sept. 13 that Elon Musk still hasn't contacted him despite publicly attacking the four-hour documentary "Musk," which premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month.
Gibney said he "reached out immediately" after Musk's complaints but Musk "clearly wasn't interested in talking"; during production his team made "so many formal outreaches" and received nothing back except Musk's remarks on X.
Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro sent Gibney's company Jigsaw Productions a letter threatening defamation action ahead of the October theatrical release, focusing on a text exchange with Ashley St. Clair — a former MAGA influencer who has a child with Musk — about pre-2024 election messages.
In those texts Musk told St. Clair he was unleashing "the anomaly in the matrix" via "'Lasers' from space … I have over 10 thousand lasers in space"; Spiro's letter argued the phrase described Starlink's inter-satellite laser links, not the debunked theory that Starlink uploaded Trump votes in swing states.
Jigsaw Productions responded that First Amendment protections cover its "right to engage in open debate and fact-based examinations of powerful public figures," adding those protections "should be recognized and defended by all Americans, including the associates of Elon Musk, who has proclaimed himself to be a 'free speech absolutist.'"
Gibney raised censorship concerns about Warner Bros. Discovery's pending merger with Paramount — run by David Ellison, son of Musk's friend and Twitter investor Larry Ellison — saying media consolidation by "tech barons" is "deeply concerning"; the Paramount-WBD deal was approved by the Justice Department this summer but faces an antitrust challenge from several states.

Why it matters: Gibney is using a public festival platform to flag structural media-consolidation risks that go beyond his own film: with HBO Max set to carry the documentary and Warner Bros. Discovery's merger pending with David Ellison's Paramount, the editorial fate of a Musk-critical work now sits at the intersection of a defamation threat, a tech-billionaire friendship network, and an active corporate takeover. Musk's refusal to engage on the record while his lawyer threatens litigation directly contradicts the 'free speech absolutist' stance Jigsaw publicly called him on.