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Why does Elon Musk hate the 4-hour documentary about himself? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian, this is the weekend edition of The Front.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. Musk, the Alex Gibney-directed four-hour documentary epic,
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  Speaker 1: started its theatrical release this week with the usual storm
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  Speaker 1: of controversy that follows its subject, the world's richest man,
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  Speaker 1: Elon Musk. The Hollywood Reporter claimed tech titans had colluded
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  Speaker 1: to obstruct online advertising. Universal Pictures allegedly got cold feet
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  Speaker 1: about distribution, and some viewers have questioned the ethics of
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  Speaker 1: using a CGI avatar of Musk in the film. It's
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  Speaker 1: fair to say Musk himself is no fan of the
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  Speaker 1: documentary or of Alex Gidney, whom he labelled a douche
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  Speaker 1: in 2023, shortly after the project was announced, and a
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  Speaker 1: horrible human after Musk's Venice Film Festival screening in September.
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  Speaker 1: And while the documentary received a five-minute standing ovation at
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  Speaker 1: Venice and a slew of five-star reviews, Elon Musk is
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  Speaker 1: now threatening defamation action against Gibney and his team. Joining
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  Speaker 1: me to talk Musk is Max Aitchison. Max is an
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  Speaker 1: expert in business people with outsized egos. He's one of
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  Speaker 1: our margin call columnists here at The Australian and spends
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  Speaker 1: his days documenting the foibles and follies of characters who
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  Speaker 1: could only wish they were as colourful as Elon.
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  Speaker 2: Give it up for the greatest.
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  Speaker 3: Capitalist in history.
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  Speaker 4: Oh!
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  Speaker 5: Elon Musk is one of the most controversial figures in
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  Speaker 5: the world.
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  Speaker 4: So I decided to make him the subject of my
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  Speaker 4: next film.
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  Speaker 1: Max, neither of us have seen this. It premiered at
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  Speaker 1: the Venice Film Festival and we'll either be seeing it
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  Speaker 1: in the movie theatres or waiting until it's on HBO.
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  Speaker 1: Have you seen any other Alex Gibney films?
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  Speaker 4: Yes, I've seen one. It was about Enron. It was
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  Speaker 4: called The Smartest Guys in the Room. That was quite
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  Speaker 4: a few years ago that I saw it now. But yeah,
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  Speaker 4: it was brilliant. He's a very good filmmaker. So yeah,
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  Speaker 4: keen to see what he's got.
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  Speaker 1: He's amazing. He's won Emmys and Oscars. I've seen the
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  Speaker 1: documentary he made about Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos,
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  Speaker 1: that was called The Inventor. And he compared her to
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Edison as a kind of business celebrity. And someone
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  Speaker 1: who kind of fakes it till they make it, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and he posed the question in the documentary, is it
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  Speaker 1: legitimate to pretend that your product works until it actually does?
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  Speaker 1: Like what Thomas Edison did with the light bulb. So
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  Speaker 1: he took a really interesting, I think, fairly balanced view
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  Speaker 1: of her rather than kind of as an out and
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  Speaker 1: out corporate criminal. Like, well, this is what inventors and
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  Speaker 1: entrepreneurs do. Now he's moved on to Elon Musk. The
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  Speaker 1: first thing most people will know about this is that
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  Speaker 1: he's really pissed off Elon Musk already. The trailer tells
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  Speaker 1: you why, doesn't it?
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  Speaker 3: We have one person who's this chaotic and has this
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  Speaker 3: much power. It's completely insane.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sensing similar themes about, you know,
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  Speaker 4: faking it till you make it. I think that argument
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  Speaker 4: could be made about Elon Musk's career. You know, he
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  Speaker 4: has presented himself for years as the sole founder of
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  Speaker 4: Tesla when that's not strictly true.
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  Speaker 1: Elon Musk is the most famous Tesla CEO.
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  Speaker 5: Hey, everyone!
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  Speaker 2: But Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarpenning were the original founding executives.
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  Speaker 3: We started it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, this is one of the things that
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  Speaker 2: I found kind of fascinating about him, is that he's
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  Speaker 2: actually accomplished some amazing.
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  Speaker 4: Things in his own right.
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  Speaker 3: He's totally amazing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, SpaceX is amazing, and he's done some interesting things
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  Speaker 2: with Tesla, for sure. I'm not sure why he has
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  Speaker 2: to also say that he was a founder when he wasn't.
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  Speaker 2: I don't understand that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, whatever.
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  Speaker 4: Whatever. there was a court case and a settlement with
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  Speaker 4: the individuals that he co-founded the business with. So yeah, no,
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  Speaker 4: it'd be interesting to see what he's got to say
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  Speaker 4: about Musk. The fact that Elon Musk hates it already
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  Speaker 4: is probably going to encourage more people to see it.
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  Speaker 4: It's the classic thing, you know, if you try and
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  Speaker 4: ban something or shut something down, all it does is
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  Speaker 4: draw more attention to it. They call it the Barbara
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  Speaker 4: Streisand effect because Barbara Streisand tried to ban some aerial
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  Speaker 4: imagery of one of her homes. And all that did
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  Speaker 4: was draw more attention to the fact that she owned
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  Speaker 4: that home. So I think Musk has done the same
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  Speaker 4: thing here.
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  Speaker 1: The Tesla story is going to be a really interesting
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  Speaker 1: part of it. I mean, he really pursues this idea
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  Speaker 1: that there is kind of almost fraudulent and hyped up,
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  Speaker 1: fake it till you make it kind of-ness about Tesla,
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  Speaker 1: which is something I hadn't heard before. There's apparently a
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  Speaker 1: sequence where there's a public demonstration of how easy it
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  Speaker 1: is to change a Tesla battery. But in fact, what
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  Speaker 1: that relied on was kind of Wizard of Oz style,
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  Speaker 1: kind of behind the scenes trickery to make it look
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  Speaker 1: like this was happening, when in fact it wasn't. Same
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  Speaker 1: with SpaceX. You know, he stepped in at a point
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  Speaker 1: where NASA was unable to fund the shuttle system anymore
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  Speaker 1: and privatised space travel. created his Starlink network of satellites.
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  Speaker 1: But the central idea there is that rockets are reusable,
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  Speaker 1: that you can land them again and then use them
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  Speaker 1: to launch something else into space, something they'd never done before.
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  Speaker 1: But that idea took a lot of effort to actually
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  Speaker 1: make it work. Like, it could have all absolutely failed.
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  Speaker 5: It was one of the most remarkable displays of engineering
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  Speaker 5: prowess and recent memory. On October 13th, SpaceX made history
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  Speaker 5: when the booster from its massive Starship rocket was caught
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  Speaker 5: by two mechanical arms dubbed Chopsticks as it descended back
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  Speaker 5: to the launch pad.
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  Speaker 1: That's the amazing thing about him, isn't it, Musk? You know,
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  Speaker 1: he has kept trying, even though he wasn't actually there
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  Speaker 1: on any.
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  Speaker 4: Of these projects. Oh, absolutely. I mean, he's certainly committed
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  Speaker 4: and he doesn't actually feature in the documentary because he's
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  Speaker 4: refused to engage with Alex Gibney, who has The director
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  Speaker 4: himself has said that he is very critical of Musk,
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  Speaker 4: like he's making no attempts to be non-partisan in his portrayal.
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  Speaker 4: Having said that, there is an AI version of Musk
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  Speaker 4: that apparently appears in the documentary. I read one review
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  Speaker 4: that said it was impossible to get used to, so
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  Speaker 4: I'm quite keen to see what that's going to look like.
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  Speaker 4: And I think it's a bit of a pastiche from
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  Speaker 4: the director, you know, because Musk is so at the
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  Speaker 4: forefront of that particular revolution. But yeah, to go back
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  Speaker 4: to Musk as a character, I mean, he is one
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  Speaker 4: of the defining people of our time, whether you like
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  Speaker 4: him or you don't, that's inarguable. The question of whether
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  Speaker 4: he's a visionary, a genius, or whether he's a confidence man,
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  Speaker 4: as Alex Gibney has said he is, I don't have
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  Speaker 4: the answers, but there's no question that he is pushing
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  Speaker 4: things further and beyond. I mean, his whole mission about
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  Speaker 4: colonizing Mars. I mean, it's the realm of science fiction.
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  Speaker 1: It's ridiculous too, though. I'm not going to Mars.
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  Speaker 3: Are you going to Mars?
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  Speaker 2: Well, we'll see.
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  Speaker 4: If it gets too hot on this planet, maybe. But no,
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  Speaker 4: I mean, we are kind of in the realm of
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  Speaker 4: science fiction.
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  Speaker 2: Mars is a dry, frozen world today. But one day,
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  Speaker 2: if entrepreneurs like Elon Musk have their way, human colonists
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  Speaker 2: could call it home.
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  Speaker 1: Once upon a time, the idea of driverless cars was far-fetched,
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  Speaker 1: or reusable rockets, of course. But the journey of Musk
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  Speaker 1: from progressive hero or visionary into kind of right-wing hate
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  Speaker 1: figure is really interesting, especially now that he seems to
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  Speaker 1: be coming back. Like, he's the one now who is
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  Speaker 1: warning about AI and who is trying to cast himself
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  Speaker 1: as kind of the angel of the AI revolution. I
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  Speaker 1: feel sometimes like it would be easier to look back
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  Speaker 1: on Elon Musk as a historical figure rather than actually
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  Speaker 1: have to live in the world that he's dominating, you know?
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  Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely. A lot of or many billionaires are quite
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  Speaker 4: inscrutable figures. You know, they don't make public comments. They
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  Speaker 4: don't give interviews. They aren't accessible. And that's largely by design.
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  Speaker 4: Musk is almost the complete opposite. Since he bought Twitter,
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  Speaker 4: renamed it X, he pumps out dozens, if not more,
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  Speaker 4: tweets a day. He's constantly engaging. He is a kind
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  Speaker 4: of internet edgelord. He weighs in on topics that you
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  Speaker 4: think wouldn't concern someone who is meant to be the
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  Speaker 4: CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world.
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  Speaker 4: He weighs in on questions of domestic UK politics, for example,
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  Speaker 4: which is extraordinary and his influence is massive. Just recently,
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  Speaker 4: one of the big scandals that he took great exception
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  Speaker 4: to was the casting in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. You know,
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  Speaker 4: he claimed it was woke, the fact that Helen of
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  Speaker 4: Troy was black and there was other characters that he
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  Speaker 4: thought should have been played by other people. And he
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  Speaker 4: gets so exercised and worked up about it and he
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  Speaker 4: says he's going to create his own AI version of
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  Speaker 4: the Odyssey and everything. So not only is he kind
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  Speaker 4: of plugged into the kind of technological advancement and that
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  Speaker 4: side of society, he's also wading in the culture wars
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  Speaker 4: and he's done that for years.
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  Speaker 1: And he casts himself as a sort of moralist too.
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  Speaker 1: Like he's saying, I think his argument about the Odyssey was,
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  Speaker 1: this should be true to Homer's epic and we shouldn't
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  Speaker 1: be trying to sort of apply 21st century values to it,
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  Speaker 1: you know. This should be much more traditional. And the
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  Speaker 1: documentary goes to his personal life and I think sets
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  Speaker 1: up that moral question about him, someone who's got at
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  Speaker 1: least 14 children. Two of his former partners are interviewed
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  Speaker 1: in the doco and they say very unflattering things about him.
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  Speaker 3: Somebody on Elon's side referred to us as the breeders.
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  Speaker 2: There's 14 that are publicly known, but people around Elon
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  Speaker 2: believe that there's many more.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you.
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  Speaker 5: This was an order creating.
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  Speaker 1: That seems to be the part of it that's made
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  Speaker 1: him the most upset, doesn't it?
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  Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely. His personal life is just as fascinating as
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  Speaker 4: his public life from his childhood in South Africa, where
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  Speaker 4: I think he was bullied at school. One friend joked
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  Speaker 4: to me that the bullies at his school did a
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  Speaker 4: pretty good job given how he turned out, you know,
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  Speaker 4: which is an interesting way of looking at things. I think,
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  Speaker 4: you know, he had a really tough upbringing with his father.
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  Speaker 4: There's been a lot written about that. Fascinating background. I mean, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: the fact that he is the father to 14, if
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  Speaker 4: not more children, many, you know, to different women, you know,
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  Speaker 4: I don't know how he keeps track of everything or has,
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  Speaker 4: you know, enough hours in the day to keep up
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  Speaker 4: with all of them. But the reason he's got so
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  Speaker 4: many children, and it has been said that he believes
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  Speaker 4: that one of the greatest threats to humanity is a
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  Speaker 4: depopulation crisis. So he sees it as his duty to
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: have more children.
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  Speaker 3: This is a holdover from, I don't know, the 70s
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  Speaker 3: or something. So there was a huge baby boom where
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  Speaker 3: people did have a ton of kids after World War II.
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  Speaker 3: But then the US has actually been at, The birth
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  Speaker 3: rate in the US has been below replacement rate since
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  Speaker 3: like 71 or 72.
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  Speaker 1: I find it amazing that there's 14 women who are
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  Speaker 1: prepared to have sex with him on those terms.
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  Speaker 4: Power is a great aphrodisiac.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess so.
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  Speaker 4: Power and influence.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe an NDA and a couple of hundred
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  Speaker 1: million dollars.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sure.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks, Max.
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  Speaker 4: Thanks.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Max Aitchison is a reporter for The Australian. You can
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: read his margin call columns anytime at theaustralian.com.au. While I've
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: got you, we're hosting a live event for our investigative podcast,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: The Poisoned Wife, on Wednesday, October 14 in Melbourne with
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Hedley Thomas, me and Karina Berger. We'd love you to
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: join us for a great conversation and some drinks and canapes.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Check out the details and get your spot at thepoisonedwife.com.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: This episode of The Front was hosted by me, Claire Harvey,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: and produced by Jasper League. Our team also includes Kristen Amiott,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Leah Tamaglou, Tiffany Dimak, and Joshua Burton.