“ELON MUSK IS CRASHING OUT OVER THE MOVIE MUSK”: Internet reacts as Space X founder slams doc director in viral tweet

Elon Musk, the world's first trillionaire as per Forbes, isn't new to making headlines. The tech mogul has recently found himself at odds with filmmaker Alex Gibney, whose documentary Musk takes a close look at his rise. A lawyer for Musk had spoken about the possibility of filing a defamation lawsuit ahead of the film's release, as per a report shared by NPR back in September. Bleecker Street has since moved the theatrical release forward to October 9, as per a report shared by Deadline, amid intense public interest in the documentary.

A user on X shared a clip from Mehdi Hasan's interview with Gibney, in which Hasan poses the question,

"Is Elon Musk the most dangerous person on earth?"

"Right now, I think he is," Gibney replied.

The same user added,

"Between nuclear weapons, terrorists, dictators, wars, actual global threats this guy says Elon Musk is the most dangerous person in the world with a straight face. This is why I can't take these people seriously."

Musk shared his opinion in relation to the post, calling Gibney

"a tinfoil hat cr*ckpot 🤡 who thinks I use space lasers to influence elections. Zero credibility."

A user on Threads captured the moment with a caption,

"ELON MUSK IS CRASHING OUT OVER THE MOVIE MUSK 🍿"

What Elon Musk's attorney had to say about the space laser texts in his letter to Gibney's production company:

As per the report shared by NPR, Musk attorney Alex Spiro sent a letter to Gibney's production company, Jigsaw Productions, zeroing in on an exchange between Gibney and Ashley St. Clair, a former MAGA influencer who dated Musk and had a child with the billionaire, in which she described text messages Musk sent her ahead of the November 2024 presidential election.

In those texts, Musk told St. Clair he was feeling more optimistic about Donald Trump winning, adding that

"tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix."

When St. Clair asked for clarity, Musk said he planned on tapping "'Lasers' from space," and that

"I have over ten thousand lasers in space right now."

In the documentary, Gibney asked St. Clair whether she believed Musk's texts were referring to satellites owned by his rocket company, SpaceX. She replied,

"I don't know where else he has lasers."

NPR had obtained and authenticated the texts between Musk and St. Clair, which were sent on October 6, 2024.

How Alex Spiro, Jigsaw Productions and Ashley St. Clair each responded to the legal threat over the Musk documentary:

In his letter, Spiro described a conspiracy theory that SpaceX's Starlink satellites had somehow uploaded votes for Trump in swing states, arguing that Gibney promoted the refuted claim in his film. Spiro wrote,

"Starlink was not connected to vote tabulation. Election officials in multiple states, independent cybersecurity researchers, and fact-checkers publicly refuted the Starlink vote-rigging claim in November 2024, and nothing since has revived it. Starlink's satellites communicate by laser inter-satellite link; that is what 'lasers in space' describes."

"You are therefore on notice, before release, that the insinuation is false, that the material refuting it is public, and that you chose not to be told the rest," Spiro added.

Jigsaw Productions responded with a statement defending its First Amendment right to engage in open debate and fact-based examinations of powerful public figures, adding that it is

"something that should be recognized and defended by all Americans, including the associates of Elon Musk, who has proclaimed himself to be a 'free speech absolutist.'"

St. Clair, for her part, shared a statement with NPR calling Musk's legal threats "a joke," adding that

"They are more likely to colonize Mars than win a defamation case against Alex Gibney. Alex Spiro is sending fairy dust letters with obtuse legalese."

Spiro had written in the letter that Gibney and the production "refused" to hear from Musk's team, describing it as a

"conscious decision to disregard the truth."

Gibney, however, has said that Musk declined to be interviewed for the film. To substitute for the real Musk, Gibney featured a deepfake version of the billionaire made with AI, who speaks directly to the camera using Musk's own words from public appearances.

Alex Gibney opens up about his dread levels and what worries him about Elon Musk:

On September 30, Alex Gibney sat down with TIME in Washington, D.C. to discuss why the documentary is so critical of Elon Musk. When asked whether the film was a hit piece, as Musk had claimed, Gibney shared,

"It's certainly critical, but I think the criticism is earned. This is a rigorous and meticulous investigation of somebody, and it ends up being critical."

The TIME interviewer noted that the film was incredibly dread-inducing, sharing that it literally ends with the destruction of the planet into a fireball. Gibney confirmed this, adding that his dread levels were "really high." He then expanded on why, sharing,

"Look at all of these tech leaders in Washington, talking about the future of AI. The takeaway seems to be, 'We'll just take care of it.'"

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Gibney then shared his concerns about Musk specifically, adding,

"Having been on that ride with Elon Musk, I don't want him to take care of it. He seems so comfortable with risk that he'd just as soon leave the planet. I posit at the end of the film, it's as if he's betting on whether or not AI will lead us to a moment of extraordinary abundance or basically the end of life on Earth. Who makes that kind of a bet?"

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