{"id":1050838,"date":"2026-09-08T12:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T12:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1050838\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T12:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T12:31:16","slug":"musk-alex-gibney-talks-elon-musks-global-right-wing-agenda-venice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1050838\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk: Alex Gibney Talks Elon Musk’s Global Right-Wing Agenda: Venice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tElon Musk<\/a> took the spotlight at the\u00a0Venice Film Festival<\/a> on Tuesday. Well, not in person! But he and his influence took center stage as filmmaker Alex Gibney<\/a> discussed his new doc, simply called Musk<\/a><\/a>, during a press conference around lunchtime.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film about the owner of X and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, world-premiering in the Italian fest\u2019s Venice\u00a0Open \u2013 Out of Competition program, comes from producers Jigsaw Productions (Gibney, Jessie Deeter, Erin Edeiken), Closer Media (Zhang Xin), Anonymous Content (Nick Shumaker, Jessica Grimshaw) and Double Agent (Dana O\u2019Keefe).<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite its 225-minute running time, the Venice synopsis of the doc is brief and to the point: \u201cAn incisive look behind the legend of Elon Musk, the world\u2019s most heralded \u2018inventorentrepreneur\u2019 who exerts an enormous influence on the world in which we all live.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGibney shared how the doc team reached out to Musk for the film, without success, and how the focus of the project changed once the tech mogul \u201cgot wrapped into Donald Trump\u201d and his story. The result is a mix of \u201cthe reality of what he has done and the unreality of his narrative,\u201d the filmmaker said. \u201cIn the service of that, we created this formulation that came out of Musk\u2019s own ideas about the notion that we\u2019re living in a simulation or in some kind of existential video game, to convey in formal terms, through a kind of avatar, which speaks with Musk\u2019s actual words, and video game imagery\u201d both sides, the reality and the unreality.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, a member of the press asked if Gibney is concerned about a potential legal backlash by Musk. \u201cWe consulted our lawyers, and they gave us a sign-off to go forward,\u201d when the doc team decided to use Musk\u2019s words and visualize the mogul as an avatar, he replied.<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked if there has been any retaliation against the filmmakers, the director shared that he encountered a \u201ctremendous sense of fear of talking, really almost existential fear,\u201d among many of the people that the film team reached out to.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, how dangerous is Musk, especially for the future of democracy? \u201cExtremely,\u201d Gibney concluded. \u201cVery dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA couple of questions focused on the tech mogul\u2019s support for political parties on the right flank of the political spectrum in such countries as Germany, where the far-right AfD just won a regional election in Saxony-Anhalt this weekend. In fact, Musk congratulated the party on the victory via a \u201cWell done!\u201d on his X. Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD\u2019s lead candidate in the region, thanked the billionaire in return, posting: \u201cThank you, @elonmusk<\/a>, for your support and for your clear and highly important perspective on the political developments of our time \u2014 including here in Germany. If we take responsibility here, I would very much welcome the opportunity for strong and constructive cooperation. Germany would once again be a place worth investing in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, what does this all mean? \u201cI hope I showed in the film that he\u2019s involved in right-wing political parties all over the globe \u2013\u00a0in Germany, in the United Kingdom, in Brazil, in Turkey, and I think there are a number of reasons for that,\u201d Gibney told the Venice press conference. \u201cThat seems to be his ideology at the moment. But in addition to that, many of these right-wing governments tend to be more pliable, and it\u2019s easier to buy the results you want for administrations that are utterly corrupt and venal and have no sense of restraint or internal checks and balances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGibney\u2019s takeaway: \u201cSo, I think he\u2019s pursuing a global right-wing agenda, both for ideological and for very practical and monetary reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSuggesting that these players are \u201cmore pliable,\u201d the filmmaker emphasized the \u201ccrony capitalist aspect to his political aspirations\u201d during the press conference. \u201cWith Trump suddenly, and with many other right-wing leaders around the world, he sees the possibility of being able to buy influence that\u2019s unprecedented, because they\u2019re much more amenable to the crony capitalist idea.\u201d Gigney\u2019s conclusion was that Musk is \u201calways pragmatic\u201d and \u201cmoves where the money is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk walks to the stage to speak alongside Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Brandon\/AP Images<\/p>\n

\n\tGibney was joined during the press conference by political commentator and author Ashley St. Clair, who has a baby with Musk, and technology journalist and author Zo\u00eb Schiffer. The latter pointed out that at his companies, Musk tends to ensure \u201cloyalty\u201d at the highest levels,\u201d while treating other people \u201cpretty harshly.\u201d At X, \u201che has tweaked the algorithm both to suppress mainstream journalism and to augment some of the more inflammatory comments and voices on that platform,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tSt. Clair mentioned her past claim that \u201cI was offered the opportunity not to speak for $40 million\u201d in the form of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) when she had her baby with Musk. \u201cI got involved with Republican politics when I was 18, after I met Charlie Kirk, and there was an air of ignorance,\u201d she explained. \u201cBut that ignorance does not excuse any role in that. I hope the risk that I\u2019m taking now in speaking out and trying to fight back at least helps a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also shared her take on his work with X and political parties around the globe. \u201cHis most complicated relationship is with the truth,\u201d she said. \u201cHe is stoking flames that don\u2019t exist in the real world, and he is creating something that is causing real-world effects. \u2026 I do believe that he is causing deliberate division that may be catastrophic if it\u2019s not regulated or tamed, or if we don\u2019t do our part in putting it down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGibney and St. Clair both mentioned what the former called Musk\u2019s \u201cvery difficult and traumatic childhood\u201d as a potential driver for him and his focus. \u201cI think to some extent he\u2019s now playing out that trauma on the rest of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAll in all, he called Musk \u201ca cautionary tale\u201d that tries, among a \u201cbewildering world of inputs\u201d in the social media age, to stitch together a narrative to show the forest amid all the trees.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a director\u2019s statement on the Venice website, Gibney shares: \u201cIn\u00a0Musk,\u00a0I chose to re-tell a familiar biographical tale but to forgo the master. Instead, I explored it from different angles that showed the master shot to be an illusion, and revealed a more disturbing truth.\u00a0Musk\u00a0reframes the story of the tech titan as the 21st century reincarnation of the confidence man. By subverting Musk\u2019s favorite tropes of video gaming and simulations, the film conveys the dangers of becoming like the\u00a0Game Master\u00a0in\u00a0Ready Player One.\u00a0It\u2019s a tale of power and its abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk took the spotlight at the\u00a0Venice Film Festival on Tuesday. Well, not in person! But he and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1050839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[383918,185,66,171,1801,2539,67,132,68,383875,30989],"class_list":["post-1050838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alex-gibney","tag-celebrities","tag-elon-musk","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-musk","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-venice-2026","tag-venice-film-festival"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1050838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1050839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1050838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1050838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1050838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}