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Elon Musk is not the founder of Tesla. The founders of Tesla are Martin Eberhard and his partner Mark Tarpenning. In a lawsuit where Martin tried to claim what he believed was his due, Elon agreed to a settlement only when Martin recognized Elon for what he was not— the founder of Tesla. Thus begins the myth that Elon Musk is not an investor, but an inventor.
I'm here with Alex Gibney. Alex, nice to see you again. Nice to see you, Sam. Now it's my turn to ask questions. Last time you talked to me. Now I'm talking to you. Yes, your turn. Well, let's talk about this project. You have created a new documentary about Elon Musk called "The Mask," which will be in theaters by the time this interview is released.
And later on HBO. I think my audience is very familiar with your work. You are currently on a very short list of America's most famous documentarians. You made " Live: Scientology," "The Inventor: Bloodlust in Silicon Valley" about Elizabeth Holmes, "The Armstrong Lie" about Lance Armstrong, " Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" about the Enron affair.
You've made many other films, but the ones I mentioned really focus on selfish and deluded people who have caused a lot of harm. And this is the main theme of your new work. Yes. This sounds like a logical transition. So, I watched the movie. You sent me a link to watch, it's 4 hours long. It's truly wonderful, and I could talk about my impressions of watching it in a minute, but I have to think it was difficult to even narrow it down to this length.
I wonder why you didn't decide to do a 10- part series or something like that, which would have given you even more time. That's a good question. Ultimately, we decided that it was worth focusing on a theatrical release for various reasons. On a sort of immersion in a movie theater. This was planned from the very beginning.
In fact, in the spring of 2024, I had a finished version of the film. It was practically complete, a two-hour version. Mhm. We were going to release it for the fall festivals, but then the assassination attempt on Trump happened. Elon Musk took on Trump, and my friends at HBO said, “You’re not done yet.
Continue. And this, you know, reminded me of a comment that's in the full version of the film, made by Elon Musk. It went like this: “They say if you’re going to hell, keep going. Or if you're going through hell, keep going." Yes. So I continued. Well, that's a very interesting starting point, because you started this film back in the day, which is somewhat similar to Walter Isaacson's biography, right?
I mean, he wrote this 500-600 page book, essentially a hagiography of Elon, that predated almost all the controversy over his right-wing leanings and his, you know, Twitter mishaps. So, things got interesting when you had, to some extent, already completed your film. Obviously you don't entirely agree with Isaacson's work.
You've been covering the Twitter situation from the very beginning. But how did you perceive Elon when you started this project? And how has that changed? So, are there really two different Alex Gibneys associated with this project? Well, there is a point where I started and there is a point where I have arrived.
I wouldn't say these are two different Alex Gibneys. It was interesting that we constantly argued about Elon: had he changed radically, or had some part of his personality simply become more pronounced? This was a discussion we had constantly. Because when I started this story, you know, I had a Tesla Powerwall at home.
I had Tesla solar panels on my house. And I found him to be a rather intriguing rebel inventor. Of course, he started losing control even before this project started. You know, there was that episode with the " pedophile" and the diver who tried to rescue the children from the Thai cave. And Twitter...well, nothing serious had happened with Twitter back then.
This was in 2023. So I was intrigued by him. And when I was approached with the offer to make a documentary about him, I wasn't sure I really wanted to do it . But a friend of mine said, “No, no, no. You should do this . "This is about 21st century power." And he was gaining great power even then. He was still the richest man in the world at the time.
So, I dug in, partly because he was similar to some of the characters I had researched before. Um, so I just thought I'd start and see where this journey takes me. I did n't really think she would bring me here, but she did . So, um, yeah, I mean, I found this viewing experience a little disorienting because you're covering, you know, all the years of his public life really.
And I was friends with him for a significant part of that period. M-hm. Um, but I wasn't And I And I should say, if I have n't already said, that you interviewed me for the film, and so I'm there to some extent. And um, I think when you interviewed me back then, I was more inclined to think that Twitter and its interaction with its own algorithm and its rise to fame and wealth and power had shaken him more than it had exposed him, right?
Because I thought I wouldn't recognize this guy. But while watching your film, I mean, so many of the shots are contemporary to my friendship with him. And I realized that I had n't been following most of his or your press coverage at all. That is, I had private experience communicating with him, but I didn't see how he manifested himself in public.
And I certainly haven't seen him in all his life roles, have I ? So I didn't see him as a bully, a narcissist, or a fame- and power-hungry monster of any kind, really. And yet some of this evidence would have been available if I had watched the footage that is in your film. Um, and I want to dig into I mean, I definitely want to be as fair as we can be to Elon here.
Um, and I want to investigate whether you are as fair as you should be in your film. Of course. But, um...I want to ask before we dive into that : what was your experience making and releasing the film, and did you encounter any opposition from Elon? So, was this a standard experience for a documentary filmmaker, or was it something unusual for you ?
Well, it was both unusual and, to some extent, typical. I mean, there were a lot of movies where I did n't have access to the main character, even though they were the central characters. Elizabeth Holmes never agreed to be interviewed by me. In that case, I found a way around it. You know, in the case of Lance Armstrong and Eliot Spitzer, I spent a lot of time with them.
Um, the guys from Enron never sat down with me , although I did manage to chat with some of the company's top executives. So that moment was always a bit...you never know exactly how things are going to turn out . I had some correspondence with Julian Assange, but he never agreed to a face-to-face interview.
What was interesting about this project was that my team included producer Jesse Dieter, who had already made two documentaries about Elon. So we had a real path to it. Jesse wrote him a few letters, you know, quite friendly ones, and urged him to cooperate. But his answer to me was very straightforward.
It's even shown in the movie, but essentially, he just tweeted. His response to our appeals was a message on Twitter: " Gibney is an idiot." Did this happen right after you first mentioned that you were making a film, or was it later? Not quite. There was another mention before that where he called it commissioned material, but that was a second reaction, I think, right after our invitation, because of course I wanted to interview him.
This was my initial desire. Yes, but it was still at an early stage. And...At that moment, I already knew that I probably wouldn't get the interview with Elon that I was hoping for. So I just replied on Twitter: "You idiot." And that's where our communication ended. And then, you know, I faced a bigger problem: how do you get to the essence of a portrait of a person when that person is not involved in the process?
But I've been in this situation before, so I just had to go down this path and see what would come of it . Were there people who had a lot to say but didn't want to talk about it on camera? Yes. Many of them were either close to Elon and did not get his permission, or were people who knew Elon quite well from work.
Some were favorable to him, some were not. But they were all afraid to appear on screen because they feared that Elon might sue them or that there would be other professional consequences. And I also think that there is a kind of club among the upper echelons of investors or executives in Silicon Valley .
You are not against other people. They don't do that. The only exception to this rule appears in the film—Reed Hoffman. Yes. But, um, there were options like, "Okay, I'll talk to you off the record or confidentially." And some of these conversations were helpful, but I noticed that, especially men, who always like to be the pompous characters in real life or in public, when it came to participating in this documentary, they just disappeared into the shadows.
Of course. Yes. So, did you contact them? I mean , I'm assuming that since Elon took the position from the beginning that the movie would be commissioned material, no one who still considered themselves his friend would be inclined to sit down with you because they would feel like they were betraying a friend, even if they were just praising him in that context.
Yes, and I find that strange. I mean, there was one person I think of in particular, who I reached out to, who I know well and who was a friend of Elon's. And he said, "Just sit with me off- record." You know, because...and tell me how great Elon is. Just express your view, your perspective, so I can take it into account.
He said, "I would never betray a friend like that." I thought it looked strange. Why, why do you take this position? Why don't you stand up for your friend by telling me how wonderful he is? But he refused to talk to me . Well, you essentially prove in the movie that Elon is some kind of fraud. I mean, he's not your typical con artist at all, because he accomplishes so much.
That is, if you compare him to someone like Elizabeth Holmes, who you also made a film about. Um, in that case, I mean, I still don't quite understand how much of a fraud she was . I mean, I think early on, she demonstrated enough understanding of biology to get her professors at Stanford to support her.
But, um, in the end it seemed like she had this "black box" that did almost nothing. No. And she was called Edison, who, by the way, was also a kind of rascal in his own way. You know, although he did invent a lot of things, he greatly exaggerated his achievements. Yes. Yeah, yeah, so Elizabeth Holmes ended up getting involved in some kind of complicated scam.
Um, I mean, Elon has transformed numerous industries. And you make it clear that he is a mythmaker and a liar, and we will be able to examine the evidence of all this as we delve deeper into your film. But, um, at least he's an amazing entrepreneur and industrialist in the sense that he knows how to attract, uh, brilliant people, mostly engineers, who can really build things.
And he, I mean, he transformed the electric vehicle industry, and I would say revived it. I mean, even more than just reviving it, he turned it into something it never was, which is—some of the most desirable cars in the world are now electric because he created them. Um, I mean, he built, you know, with the Model S he created a four-door sedan that out-performed Lamborghini and Ferrari on the race track, right?
So, I mean, it was something real. Um, and the same with SpaceX. I mean, he put, you know, more satellites into orbit than all the rest of humanity combined, right? So, there is some...it's hard to just call him a fraud, but at the same time there is so much evidence of fraud, deception, and dishonesty.
Again , this is something I only learned after , uh, finding myself on the other side of the barricades from him, as a former friend, but how do you resolve that tension as a storyteller? Well, you're right that he's not Elizabeth Holmes. Elizabeth Holmes had no product. You know , that box, as we already discussed, was a joke.
Um, you're right , he was and in some respects remains a great industrialist. I mean, you know, let's acknowledge some of his superpowers. You know, he had an extraordinary determination to succeed. He backed up his intentions not with words, but with deeds . He turned out to be an incredible master of fundraising.
Later, when we come to the other side of the matter, I will describe some of the fraudulent methods by which he raised money, but he did indeed raise a great deal of it . Also, in both of these key companies, Tesla and SpaceX, he created a sense of mission that, I think, attracted an extraordinary number of very talented engineers and leaders.
Um, and SpaceX is now run by a woman , Gwynne Shotwell, who played a critical role. I also interviewed someone who was at the founding...well, I spoke to two people who were at the origins of both companies. Both are interesting in many ways, but, you know, he brought a lot of extraordinary engineers into SpaceX.
So, he brought the matter to an end . You know, Tesla has become a successful company and has really helped push other car companies around the world to grow. Now, I think many companies have already surpassed Tesla, because Elon lost his vigilance and for a number of other reasons, but it's worth recognizing that he really gave it a start.
He wasn't the first. In fact, in many important respects he was almost always the second to take the plunge , but he found a way forward that was so driving that he became extremely successful. This cannot be taken away from him. This is a fact. So, what did he actually lie about? I don't know if you want to organize your thoughts on this.
You could go through specific companies . I don't know how you want to start this. I think the best way is to look at Tesla, because that's where we kind of started. And I also think the best way to understand this is to look at his tendency to self-mythologize. We could start with that and then move on to Tesla itself and how he was able to raise funds for it, because to get the money he had to go to the stock market.
And to enter the stock market, he had to exaggerate certain aspects of the company's operations in a way that was deeply fraudulent. But let's start with the founding of Tesla, because Elon Musk is not the founder of Tesla. The founders of Tesla were a guy named Martin Eberhard and his partner Mark Tarpenning.
They were the ones who developed the key technology—the lithium- ion battery— that provided cars with such powerful torque. Actually, that's why they were faster or had better acceleration than Lamborghini. In addition, they developed a business model for Tesla: start with the premium segment of the market, get people interested, because until then, electric cars were more like sewing machines on wheels, right?
But it was necessary to get people interested in the car. It's expensive at first, but later, as it becomes more popular, you can reduce costs while growing market share. So all of this was done initially by Martin and Mark. Elon came as an investor, spending most of his time at SpaceX. But at some point, when Tesla began to achieve success, Elon began to be annoyed that he was being credited with less credit in the company than Mark and Martin.
He eventually forced Martin out of the company, and during a lawsuit in which Martin tried to get his due, Elon agreed to a settlement only when Martin recognized Elon for what he was not - the founder of Tesla. Mhm. This is a rather strange moment. Of course, we can all agree that CEOs like to take all the credit.
But insisting in the document on a kind of fundamental lie about who you are is an interesting point , because that's when the myth-making begins that Elon Musk is not an investor, but an inventor. Mhm. And this would become the basis of his strategy to get people to give him extremely high stock valuations based on promises about the future that were completely out of line with the company's miserable economic performance most of the time.
That's it. That's all for you. And then, starting with Tesla, there's an interesting moment that I found out about by talking to a few people, and they showed me a video—a kind of Steve Jobs-style demonstration where he demonstrates something called " battery replacement." And you know, we can all agree that the first question asked of anyone who drives an electric car, and I drive one, is not Tesla, it's Polestar.
Mhm. But you know, the first thing people ask me is: " What's its range ?" Because even though most people only drive 15–20 miles a day, people are still obsessed with it. So, if the range problem of an electric car could be solved, that would be great. And so Elon invents this method of replacing the battery, arranges a big demonstration: on one side, a BMW drives up to a gas station, and on the other, a Tesla pulls into some incomprehensible area in the floor.
The idea is that replacing a Tesla battery is faster than filling up a BMW with gas. Yes. Well, that would fix everything , right? He demonstrates it and you think, "Wow, he just solved the main problem of the electric car." Then he says he will launch such stations all over California, and he does indeed open a battery swap station.
But it turns out that no replacement ever happens. And in general, this whole idea of replacement turned out to be pointless, because, you know, a Tesla battery weighs over 1,000 pounds. Mhm. When it leaves the factory, it is all covered in sealant. Everyone is scratching their heads. Like: "What is this anyway ?" It turned out that he simply "hacked" the rewards system in California, where there was a program that essentially said, "If you can demonstrate the extraordinary efficiency of electric vehicles at least once, we will give you a huge subsidy." Yes.
So, he was doing it for the subsidy, it was fraud. He did n't really intend to do that. He just wanted to fulfill the conditions for receiving the subsidy and then move on. Yeah, well, most of the success story of Tesla and even SpaceX is a story of government loans, subsidies, and... Yeah. Which makes his actions towards Doge even more hypocritical and annoying, which we'll get to later.
But, um, I mean, there 's still this blurry line between "fake it ' til you make it" or just, you know, being overly optimistic about your own prospects and being an actual fraud, right? That is, to be a real con artist. I mean, you spent a lot of time in this movie asking about autopilot claims. Yes.
Um, I...Yes, again, I was actually in the front row during a lot of these events. I saw what he was saying. I had a Model S. I saw what it was capable of. And he, you know, I think he admitted that he was too optimistic about the terms that he always called. Perhaps he only realized this after the fact.
And there are many recordings where he confidently says: " At the end of this year we will have full autonomy," and it's 2017 or something like that. But, um, let's just assume that Tesla will eventually reach this fifth level of autonomy for its cars. It just was n't in 2017. Do you think this is a scam, or just a way to create a truly exciting attraction through a fairground ride?
I think what Elon Musk did with USAID is a kind of demonstrative cruelty, because he was warned about the consequences, and he still did it his way . And honestly, you could argue whether we need foreign aid, but it was the immediate cessation of it, when they were literally stopping food that had already been paid for for starving children... They were literally burning that food.
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