Gibney's 'Musk' Doc Teaser Debuts Ahead of Venice Premiere — SkimNews
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- Alex Gibney's documentary 'Musk' dropped its first 48-second teaser trailer, pairing spacecraft montages with clashing voiceover assessments — from 'possibly the greatest living inventor' to 'a fascist' who 'has lost his mind,' ending with the line 'Elon is a nuke.'
- 'Musk' will world premiere out of competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on Sept. 8, then continue to the Toronto International Film Festival.
- The documentary runs nearly four hours and features an original song from Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, titled 'Let Me Sell You a Dream.'
- Gibney first revealed the project in March 2023; Elon Musk responded on X/Twitter by predicting it would be 'a hit piece,' prompting Gibney to reply on the same platform, 'how would you know?'
- The film is produced by Gibney alongside Jessie Deeter, Erin Edeiken (Jigsaw Productions), Dana O'Keefe (Double Agent), Joey Marra, Zhang Xin (Closer Media), Nick Shumaker and Jessica Grimshaw (Anonymous Content), Ronan Farrow, and Lawrence Wright.
Why it matters: A nearly four-hour runtime from an Oscar-winning director at Venice and Toronto signals this is positioning as a definitive Musk portrait rather than a quick TV hit, and Musk's own 2023 'hit piece' prediction on X gave Gibney a pre-baked marketing hook — with Byrne's original song underscoring the production's prestige ambitions for streaming or awards-season pickup.
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