Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has released Musk, a documentary about Elon Musk that runs for more than three and a half hours. It is one of several new films that show tech billionaires as villains, according to a feature published by Moneyweb.
The documentary follows Musk from his early success in the dot-com boom. It then covers his time leading Tesla and SpaceX, his purchase of Twitter and his alliance with President Donald Trump.
“How could Musk assume so much power, and why had we given it to him?” Gibney asks in the film, as a kind of mission statement.
Near the end of the film, Musk is asked why he wants to turn X into a global platform. The question comes from Indian billionaire Nikhil Kamath, during his People by WTF podcast in November 2025.
Musk pauses for several seconds before answering. After a few false starts, he said the aim was “to increase our understanding of the universe.”
The film also looks at the Department of Government Efficiency, set up under the Trump administration. It focuses on cuts to the US Agency for International Development and how these hit projects in Africa.
Gibney is 72 years old. He won the 2007 Academy Award for best documentary feature for Taxi to the Dark Side, a film about abuse by American soldiers.
The documentary came out a few months after Musk became the world’s first trillionaire. This followed the record initial public offering of SpaceX, according to the feature.
A Pew survey from last year found that more than half of Americans have an unfavourable view of Musk. Two thirds had a negative view of Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
Another version of Musk appears in Artificial, which screened at the London Film Festival this month. The film is directed by Luca Guadagnino and is due for release this winter.
Artificial tells the story of the early years of OpenAI, which Musk co-founded in 2015. Musk left the company in 2018. In the film, he is played by Ike Barinholtz as a comic figure.
The film shows OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, played by Garfield, as cold and manipulative. It covers his falling out with co-founder Ilya Sutskever, played by Yura Borisov.
Altman told Vanity Fair this month that he did not expect the film to be an “accurate depiction.” He said Guadagnino was “trying to make a good movie.”
A fictional tech billionaire also appears in Bunker, directed by Florian Zeller. It stars Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz and is due for release in early 2027.
In Bunker, Bardem plays an architect asked to build a luxury bunker in Hawaii. His unnamed client, played by Paul Dano, is preparing for a possible breakdown of society.
Zuckerberg is building a real compound in Hawaii worth $100 million that includes an underground shelter. He has denied it is meant as a doomsday bunker.
Writer Aaron Sorkin has also returned with The Social Reckoning, which follows his 2010 film The Social Network. In the new film, Jeremy Strong plays Zuckerberg.
The Social Reckoning follows Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz and whistleblower Frances Haugen. It shows how they worked together on reporting about Facebook and its algorithm in 2021.
Source: this article is based on reporting by Moneyweb. Image: Moneyweb. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Business desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Anelisa Nkuna covers business and money news for Tzaneen Voice. Anelisa reports on the rand, fuel prices, interest rates, jobs, Eskom, Transnet, farming and company results. The aim is simple: explain what the numbers mean for household budgets, small businesses and workers in South Africa.