New Elon Musk Documentary Features Damning Voices From Inner Circle
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What happened
Filmmaker Alex Gibney's documentary "Musk" is opening in Los Angeles and New York after a screening at the Mill Valley Film Festival in Marin County, California. The nearly four-hour film covers Elon Musk's leadership of Tesla and SpaceX, his family, and his political activities, including donations to Donald Trump's 2024 campaign. Musk did not participate and posted on X that the film is a "hit piece" by a filmmaker with "zero integrity." The documentary includes a videotaped deposition of Tesla engineer Ashok Elluswamy about a 2016 self-driving promotional video and an audio recording of Musk associate Jared Birchall speaking with Ashley St. Clair about child support; both episodes had been previously reported by Reuters and The Wall Street Journal.
Sourcing check · No sources quoted · 3 articles
No article names a source or cites a document. It started with unnamed sources and none has been named since.
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- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: None cited.
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- The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
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- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Oct 9, 09:00 UTC by NBC News, with no named source. No article has named one since.
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- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
BLINDSPOT.
Only left-leaning outlets are covering this story
— the other side's media is silent.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
The coverage gap is one-sided silence. Left-leaning coverage reports that Alex Gibney's documentary uses Elon Musk's own lieutenants as its harshest on-record voices, including newly public video of Tesla engineer Ashok Elluswamy and audio of Jared Birchall. Right-leaning outlets have not covered the film. Readers there miss both its existence and NBC News's account that some of those employees still work for him. Musk declined to participate and called the project a hit piece.
NBC News flags that Gibney includes an unfounded Starlink election-meddling claim. The Atlantic instead presents the documentary as making the case that Musk is a human of mass destruction.
What in those lieutenant recordings actually exceeds the earlier print accounts of the same episodes?
Bottom line
A four-hour Gibney film on Musk is invisible on the right; NBC News says the surprise is damning recordings from his own remaining staff, not the usual outside critics.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Newly public deposition video of Tesla engineer Ashok Elluswamy acknowledging that a 2016 self-driving hype video was not an accurate representation of Tesla's technology
- Audio of Jared Birchall, who handles Musk's personal matters, playing hardball on child-support arrangements with Ashley St. Clair after she gave birth
- The documentary runs nearly four hours, with a 10-minute intermission
- The film includes dashcam of a 2019 Autopilot crash for which a jury found Tesla 33 percent at fault and ordered $243 million in damages
- The film cites a projection of 14 million potential deaths over five years from USAID food-program freezes, voiced by Samantha Power
The Left View
NBC News frames the film as notable because some of the harshest material comes from Musk's own lieutenants, including Elluswamy's deposition acknowledgment that a 2016 Tesla Autopilot hype video did not accurately represent the technology, and Birchall's recorded call about child-support terms. It recounts Tesla Autopilot crash footage, including a 2019 Florida incident in which a jury found Tesla 33 percent at fault, and cites former USAID administrator Samantha Power linking Musk-backed aid cuts to a projection of 14 million potential deaths. The New York Times calls the film a supersized portrait that reveals new details and resurfaces troubling incidents. The Atlantic presents it as arguing Musk is a "human of mass destruction." NBC notes Gibney also airs an unfounded Starlink election-meddling theory that fact-checkers have criticized, and that Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, Elluswamy, and Birchall did not respond to requests for comment.
Our Take (balanced)
The story is substantive as an account of a real theatrical documentary with named actors, prior court and news records, and Musk's own public response; the Elluswamy deposition and Birchall recording were already documented by Reuters in 2023 and The Wall Street Journal, though NBC reports the video and audio themselves appear newly public. What is established is the film's existence, its sourcing mix, and Musk's rejection of it. What remains alleged or weakly supported inside the film includes Starlink election interference, which independent fact-checkers have long called unfounded, and the USAID death figure, which is a multi-year projection rather than a counted total. No right-leaning outlet has reported this. Watch for any on-the-record responses from Tesla, SpaceX, Elluswamy, or Birchall; independent verification of the newly public clips; and reviews or legal replies after the opening.
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