Elon Musk has just sent shock waves through Hollywood over threats to sue for defamation over Alex Gibney’s four-hour documentary on the ultra-rich mogul.
The film, titled “Musk,” only debuted at the Venice Film Festival two days ago, Sept. 8, and received a five-minute standing ovation.
But Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, a partner at the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Harvard Law School grad, didn’t wait for the film’s premiere or its Friday, Oct. 16, release.
In a Sept. 3 letter to film producer Jigsaw Productions, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Spiro says Musk made “multiple” requests to “present the facts” but the filmmakers “refused to engage.”
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“While we are ardent supporters of the First Amendment, and respect the reporting process, it has become abundantly clear that the motivations behind this piece are not the pursuit of truth, but something far different. This project did not begin as an inquiry. It began with a conclusion,” states the letter, first published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Spiro, who specializes in investigations, government enforcement, and white-collar defense and formerly worked for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, zeroed on a claim in the film that Musk used his Starlink satellites to boost Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
“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.
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Film Director Gibney is no Hollywood lightweight. His career spans more than 40 years and more than 50 productions. His films were twice nominated for Academy Awards and won in 2007 for best documentary feature.
“Alex Gibney’s films are consistently recognized for their in-depth, fact-driven explorations of influential figures and corporations, coupled with his bold and engaging directorial style,” Jigsaw Productions wrote in a statement.
He has a “reputation that The Times of London recently lauded as the “gold standard for fearless journalistic integrity.
“The right to engage in open debate and fact-based examinations of powerful public figures is protected by the first amendment – 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.’”
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At least part of the documentary’s claims are premised on Musk’s former partner, baby mama and conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair.
According to authenticated text messages highlighted in the documentary, Musk bragged that he would “unleash the anomaly in the matrix,” to elect Trump.
When pressed to explain, Musk replied that he had 10,000 lasers in space, which was taken as reference to his SpaceX Starlink satellite constellation.
“This is not a piece they’ll see on the chess board,” he told her.
An estimated 11,093 Starlink satellites are currently in orbit, with about 11,078 of them functioning, according to a website that tracks satellites.
While Spiro characterized the claims as an “insinuation,” he noted that “defamation does not require an express accusation.”
Celebrity outlet TMZ cited “sources close to Musk” calling references to lasers and space technology entirely metaphorical and “total nonsense.”
Aside from “space lasers,” Musk went all in to influence the 2024 cycle.
He funneled over $290 million into Trump’s campaign, and spearheaded a massive voter turnout operation that included a daily $1 million lottery giveaway in exchange for a voter’s data.
Musk didn’t help his case when he bragged on his social media site “X,” “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude.”
He was referencing a public feud with Trump over federal spending and tariffs.
For his part, Trump has also raised concerns about Musk’s role in the election, if inadvertently. At a campaign rally he boasted: “[Musk] knows those computers better than anybody, all those computers… And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like, in a landslide, so it was pretty good, it was pretty good. So, thank you to Elon.”
During a Nov. 2024 rally, Trump boasted again: “[Musk] really is watching this whole voting process. … He looked at some that were just shipped in, some of these vote-counting computers. He knew it before it even came in the door. He looked like at the back of it, ‘Oh, I know that one.’ He knows this stuff better than anyone.”
The 2024 election also had a major anomaly.
Trump won all seven swing states by vote margins that were just below the threshold requiring recounts. The feat was likened to winning the lottery seven times in a row.
Despite the saber rattling, Spiro left the door open to resolve the matter short of court.
“Our door is open if you decide to check your facts with the people who know them. If not, we will proceed accordingly,” he wrote.
The controversy is coming at an inauspicious time for the Trump administration ahead of the looming midterm elections.
A lawsuit would thrust Musk back into the headlines and focus scrutiny on Trump at a time when critics say he is attempting to influence the midterm elections with everything from voter supression to $5,000 giveaways.
Must is already spending heavily in select mid-term elections in contested states.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) civil rights organization, charged yesterday that the Musk-backed America PAC is financing anti-LGBTQ+ political advertising in the U.S. Senate races in Alaska, Ohio, Texas, and Iowa.
Musk’s America PAC will focus on door-knocking, digital advertising and direct mail aimed at turning out the conservative base, according to Axios.
Check out the trailer:
Keith Girard has four decades of experience as an award-winning reporter, editor-in-chief, and senior media executive. Keith’s career began in Washington, D.C., where he was a reporter for The Washington Post and a contributing editor for Regardie’s and Washingtonian magazines. He also worked as a writer/producer in CNN’s Washington Bureau and has written non-fiction books on the U.S. Marines in the Gulf War and Donald Trump and two novels, “The Heidelberg Conundrum” and “The Curse of Northam Bay.”