Elon Musk isn’t having much of a week. His spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the midterm elections, only to have his preferred Republican candidates lose. And now he’s taking it on the chin from Robert De Niro.
The Oscar-winning actor was joined by his fellow Tribeca Festival founder Jane Rosenthal for a screening in New York City Sunday of Musk, Alex Gibney’s documentary that is highly critical of the world’s richest man. We understand a roomful of Academy members was on hand for the event at the Crosby Hotel in Manhattan.
“Elon Musk spent about 300 million dollars getting Trump elected in 2024,” De Niro said as he introduced the film. “And he just spent close to half a billion on Republicans in this past week’s election. How did that turn out for you?” he said to cheers and laughter.
De Niro alluded to more bad news for Musk this week – his announcement on X that Tesla would end production of the much-ballyhooed Cybertruck next summer.
Watch on Deadline
“In the fight between Musk’s money and democracy, democracy won. This time. But just like his grotesque Cybertruck, Musk isn’t going anywhere,” De Niro commented. “It’s a reminder that while we are celebrating the massive electoral repudiation of Trump and Trumpism, we have to be vigilant — and not just vigilant, we have to be ready to take action. This is an important film, I hope you will be as moved as I was by it and spread the word.”
For his part, Oscar winner Gibney told De Niro, “Thank you, Bob, for all you have done for all of the resistance.”
Musk, with a running time of 3 hours 52 minutes, is now available on VOD platforms. Released theatrically by Bleecker Street, the documentary has made over $700,000 at the domestic box office.
“I admit I was apprehensive before watching this film, the first time I saw it. I mean four hours, Alex, really?” Rosenthal kidded Gibney. “Four hours in the company of Elon Musk — it is a lot to ask. It is a thoroughly engrossing film about a thoroughly gross character. A character we cannot ignore.”
Rosenthal added, “2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu [author of The Art of War] cautioned us to know your enemy. Musk the film exposes Musk the man and we cannot look away.”
On Sunday night, Musk won Best Biographical Documentary at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards in New York. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival and went on to screen at the Toronto Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, Zurich Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival and more. It screens later this week at DOC NYC after making that festival’s prestigious shortlist of the year’s best documentaries. Musk is also slated to screen this month at IDFA in Amsterdam, the world’s biggest documentary film festival.