Split into two parts with, mercifully, a small intermission, the first two hours (!) details Elon Musk's rise to riches via Zip 2, a sort of map based local directory which he developed with his brother Kimbal and sold for a huge profit in the late 90s. Shock numbers one and two - there will be others - are a) his ability to make large fortunes remarkably easy and b) footage of him at this point being follicularly challenged, something quietly rectified as the years advance (along with other tweakments).
The rot sets in with the Tesla project. A laudable ambition, to create a battery driven car, becomes strained when Musk pushes for the development of Autopilot, the driverless vehicle, and proceeds to convince the buying public of the project's safety; in real life this is very much not the truth. Gibney produces witness testimony - and, shockingly, real crash footage - showing the human cost of Autopilot gone wrong in numerous accidents hushed up by out of court settlements, and manipulated demonstrations which cover up the technology's shortcomings. Musk also covers his brutal buyout - and internal massacre - at Twitter, using management 'techniques' that he'd later deploy within the US Government.
We hear a little about Musk's upbringing and his horrendous bullying father Errol but, because Elon wasn't prepared to talk to Gibney, these recollections are delivered via existing statements from family and, in the documentary's much needed human element, interviews with former wives, most notably his first, Justine Wilson. Through her we learn of the man's ambition to be the world's most prolific baby father, the public manipulation of the heartbreak of their first child dying as a baby (he maintained online that the child died in his arms when in reality it was Justine doing the holding) and later his disowning - personally and financially - of his trans daughter Vivian, claiming that his 'son' was "dead - killed by the woke mind virus". Gibney's way around the non participation of the subject is to use an AI version of the man, articulating sentences attributed to him over the years; it's a bit of a clunky device, but turning Musk into a chisel jawed avatar is exactly the version of the guy that he himself would probably deploy.
Where ambition morphs into folly is evidenced through his SpaceX project into 'Occupy Mars' (wherein Musk is aiming for an established city on the planet by 2050); experts are on hand to dismiss the practicality of this by describing the extent of Mars's hostile environment, but of course it doesn't stop the US President sliding the project onto his own agenda, as shown in Part 2 of the documentary.
And let's get to Part 2, which slowly pulls the Quixotic mask off Musk to reveal the dark heart of, as he's described when he joins Trump on the 2024 Campaign trail, 'the greatest capitalist in modern day America'. Gibney shows how the hyper-enthusiastic Musk - which some have attributed to the guy's excessive drug use - and his likely deployment of the controversial 'Starlink' satellite comms system to aid pro Trump messaging in the days leading up to the President's second term in office - inveigled his way into Trump's perverted Camelot. His appointment as head of the Department of Government Efficiency shows the DOGE project for what it was; a cynical dismantling of those central departments who were starting to bring an investigative case against Musk for his previous transgressions.
Footage of Musk, hoisting his son X on his shoulders (the child the subject of a fierce custody battle with the musician Grimes) while he and Trump seemingly make it up as they go along in the Oval Office, his spat with the President and reconciliation, make up some of the most chilling aspects of the documentary. "He is a nuke" is how ex partner Ashley St Clair, a former MAGA cheerleader who is also in a custody battle with the man, describes Musk, and an interview at the close of the documentary, in which a tongue tied Musk is unable to articulate precisely what his motivations are, either suggests someone who has lost sight of his ambitions, or someone in full possession of them but who chooses, once again, not to publicly play his hand.
Musk profiles a man completely without self awareness, whose treatment of employees, wives and Government high ups is disdainful and whose world view is that of a child with his finger uncomfortably near the button. He offers no solutions beyond progress for its own sake, no humanity (he scarcely considers himself as human), is totally unaccountable and considers those who would challenge him as '"stupid" or "douchebags". See this documentary now, and tell me afterwards if you don't agree that we're totally fucked, and we brought it on ourselves.
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