Elon Musk is threatening to sue over documentarian Alex Gibney’s new movie about him, saying the film’s insinuation that Musk influenced the 2024 election in President Trump’s favor reeks of defamation.
Musk’s high-profile lawyer Alex Spiro blasted Gibney’s film in a new letter, addressing the head of the production company behind it.
Spiro zeroed in on coverage of the movie, which premiered Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival, noting the flick suggests Musk used his Starlink satellites to tilt the 2024 contest in favor of his ally Trump.
“You are … 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 wrote Adam Mellion of Jigsaw Productions.
He was referencing articles noting that Musk’s ex Ashley St. Clair says in the movie: “He had told me [before the election] he was going to unleash the ‘anomaly in the matrix.’”
She goes on to say Musk told her, “I have ten thousand lasers in space.” Asked by Gibney if she believes Musk was referring to Starlink, she states, “I mean, I don’t know where else he has space lasers.”
Spiro’s letter states those quotes and other statements in the movie superficially frame the idea of Musk committing election interference as a question – but really amount to an unfounded accusation of a serious crime.
“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,” Spiro wrote in the letter dated Sept. 3 and obtained by the post on Wednesday.
“Starlink’s satellites communicate by laser inter-satellite link; that is what ‘lasers in space’ describes,” he continued.
“Those are among the very facts that we, and others with firsthand knowledge, repeatedly offered to provide and that you declined to hear. 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.”
The nearly four-hour-long “Musk” film, which purports to be a “definitive and unvarnished examination” of the SpaceX and Tesla titan, drew a standing ovation in Venice on Tuesday. The flick, years in the making, is set to hit theaters in October.
Spiro suggested Gibney had it in for Musk, noting that when Musk described the film as a “hit piece” in 2023, Gibney tauntingly replied, “How would you know?”
“Mr. Gibney’s method is avowedly not neutral. Accepting a career achievement award in 2013, he described objectivity as a ‘folly,’ urged that every filmmaker should hold a point of view, and explained that he gravitates toward abuses of power precisely because of his own belief that powerful people lie more readily than anyone else,” the attorney wrote.
The Post has sought comment from Gibney and Mellion.