Alex Gibney’s nearly four-hour documentary Musk premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, sparking intense debate with its unsparing portrait of the world’s richest man, an AI-generated interview avatar, and explosive revelations.
The Oscar-winning director brought the world premiere of Musk to the Sala Grande, where the sprawling feature received a five-minute standing ovation from the appreciative crowd, with a couple of people shouting “thank you.” Nearly four years in the making, the 225-minute film with a ten-minute intermission is less a straightforward biography than a relentless investigation into how its subject has accumulated extraordinary influence over world affairs—from Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink to X and his co-pilot seat inside Donald Trump’s political movement.
Secrets, scandals, and space dreams
Director Alex Gibney posed for photographers at the photo call for the documentary film ‘Musk’ during the 83rd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, alongside producer Jessie Deeter, Ashley St. Clair, Zoë Schiffer, and producer Erin Edeiken.
Venice Film Festival Premiere and Critical Reactions
The documentary divided critics upon its debut at the Venice Film Festival, where it screened out of competition in the Venice Open strand. Variety called it a lacerating portrait,
while Deadline said the “damning” movie had “thrashed” Musk as petty, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, cruel.
Alex Gibney Elon Musk Documentary Unsettles Venice at World
Despite the positive reception, the nearly four-hour runtime and the deeply unsettling nature of Gibney’s portrayal also seemed to have exhausted the crowd. Elon Musk has spoken out about Alex Gibney‘s four-hour documentary on him, calling it a “hit-piece.” Musk called Gibney a “douchebag” on his social network X.
The AI Avatar and the Simulation Theory
As its subject declined to sit for an interview, the film built one. In a fine irony, a CGI avatar of Musk, driven by AI voice syncing, delivers statements he made in real interviews elsewhere. A man who has spent a decade suggesting we are probably living in a simulation has now been rendered as one, in his own words, for four hours. Gibney called the choice intentionally ironic when he presented the film, citing both simulation theory and Musk’s position on the technology, the Associated Press reported. The production took legal advice before proceeding, which is a step the synthetic likeness business does not always bother with. The device conveys the reality of what he’s done and unreality of his narrative,
he said.
Alex Gibney’s Musk documentary premieres in Venice with an
From Silicon Valley to Global Power
Gibney, in his nearly four-hour work, traces South Africa-born Musk’s career and life from a Silicon Valley dot.com entrepreneur in the early 2000s to becoming the world’s first trillionaire. Gibney has made films about powerful people, corporations and organizations before: Enron, Elizabeth Holmes, Scientology and the U.S. military’s torture are just a few.
Following its world premiere, Bleecker Street is releasing the film in cinemas in October.
