Who wants to hear more about famous billionaire, tech giant, and resident earthworm lookalike Elon Musk? Obviously the answer is nobody but sorry! For better or for worse (I’ll let you guess which one), Musk and his Scrooge McDuck-esque heaps of money are making a major impact not only on U.S. society but on how the economy works around the world. Therefore it may come as little surprise to you that Musk will be getting his own biopic documentary soon. And it will be directed by none other than Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winning director of Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.
“Now is the moment for a rigorous portrait of Elon Musk, who is undeniably one of the most influential figures of our time. Closer Media is thrilled to join forces with Alex Gibney, Anonymous Content, and Double Agent to take on the challenge of examining Musk and his impact on the world,” said Closer Media founder Zhang Xin in a vague sort of statement that doesn’t really give us any clue about what the tone of the portrait will be.
Is this film going to be fodder for aggressive finance types and tech bros to dream and drool over? Or will this video portrait of a massively flawed man born into extreme wealth, who directs the world economy to trail after his whims? There are many different lenses through which to view an extremely flawed but also undeniably powerful man.
Musk is the guy who made the electric car not only functional, but also powerful, luxurious, covetable, and cool. He’s the guy who tried (and is kind of succeeding in) privatizing outer space, which is just bonkers unacceptable. He’s the guy who brokered a basically unprecedented deal to take Twitter Inc. private with himself at the helm, and by most accounts, nearly ruined it entirely in a matter of weeks.
According to reporting by Variety, Gibney was already months into production when the announcement of the film came out Monday. The words Gibney used were that he is “hugely excited” about putting together the “definitive and unvarnished examination of multi-billionaire tech entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter.” I like the notion that it will be unvarnished. Gibney’s past work exposing the dark underbelly of Scientology’s higher-ups gives me a bit of hope that this film won’t shy away from exposing and analyzing the undesirable moments in Musk’s career, of which, we are sure, he will find no dearth.
(featured image: Taylor Hill/Getty Images)
