Robert De Niro opened a New York screening of Alex Gibney’s “Musk” on Sunday by taking aim at the billionaire’s political spending, asking him how that investment turned out. The Oscar winner and Tribeca Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal hosted the event at the Crosby Hotel in Manhattan, where Academy members filled the room, according to Deadline. Introducing the film, De Niro said Elon Musk spent about $300 million to help elect Donald Trump in 2024. He also took a swipe at Musk’s Cybertruck. De Niro’s figure came from his remarks and was not independently cited at the event. Deadline linked the jab to Musk’s heavy midterm spending, which it said failed to deliver the Republican wins he sought.
Gibney, who won an Oscar for “Taxi to the Dark Side,” thanked De Niro for his work for what he called the resistance. Rosenthal drew laughs by teasing the director about the runtime, noting that four hours in Musk’s company asks a lot of an audience. The film runs 3 hours and 52 minutes.
The documentary premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September and opened in theaters through Bleecker Street in October. It has grossed just over $700,000 domestically, a modest total for a film that long, and arrived on digital platforms Nov. 6. It tracks Musk from Zip2 and PayPal through Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink and X, and into his alliance with Trump and his DOGE role. Gibney used an AI-generated Musk to deliver the subject’s own past statements, since Musk declined to sit for an interview. Ashley St. Clair, who has a child with Musk, appears and says she turned down a $40 million nondisclosure agreement.
Musk has fought the film publicly. He has called Gibney names on X and dismissed the project as a hit piece. His attorney, Alex Spiro, sent a letter warning that the film’s insinuation about Starlink and the 2024 election was false and that refuting material is public. Gibney has said his team made repeated attempts to reach Musk without a response and that lawyers cleared the film for release. The documentary won best biographical documentary at Saturday’s Critics Choice Documentary Awards, and it sits on awards shortlists heading into Oscar season.
