A recent documentary on Elon Musk employs a CGI avatar and AI-driven voice synchronization to stage an interview with the SpaceX and Tesla CEO, drawing exclusively on his own prior remarks from real interviews.

The choice, filmmaker Alex Gibney said Tuesday in Venice before the film's world premiere, was deliberately ironic.

It both references Musk's claim that we are all living in a simulation and challenges his somewhat contradictory and shifting views on the technology.

Gibney said it aims to convey the "reality of what he's done and unreality of his narrative."

The filmmakers sought legal counsel before venturing too far down the path, securing approval to use the Musk avatar.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker was joined at the Venice Film Festival by Ashley St. Clair, a former conservative influencer who shares a child with Musk and features in the film.

She discusses their relationship, his character, and the non-disclosure agreement she was asked to sign—and declined—in exchange for paternity support.

“I was presented with the prospect of remaining silent in exchange for $40 million,” she remarked.

Earlier this year, St. Clair also initiated legal proceedings against Musk’s AI company, alleging that its Grok chatbot enabled users to produce sexually exploitative deepfake images of her, resulting in considerable humiliation and emotional distress.

The film examines Musk's acquisition of X and what Gibney characterizes as the manipulation of the algorithm.

"What I didn't fully grasp when I began the film was how Musk adjusted Twitter's algorithms to actually favor hostility and hate over the idea of a public square," Gibney said.

Zoë Schiffer, a reporter for *Wired* who also features in the film, further noted that "he has tweaked the algorithm, both to suppress mainstream journalism and then to augment some of the more inflammatory comments and voices on that platform."

St. Clair expressed her conviction that he is deliberately fanning the flames and “causing deliberate division that could be catastrophic if it’s not regulated or contained.”

Running nearly four hours, "Musk" examines his difficult childhood, including an interview with his father, Errol Musk, and charts his early career in Silicon Valley through his DOGE work under the second Trump administration and his involvement in right-wing politics abroad.

Gibney said the film was originally meant to be much shorter before Musk became closely associated with Trump's campaign.

The interviewees include Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard, his first wife Justine Musk, neurologist Sam Harris, technology journalist Kara Swisher, and former USAID Administrator Samantha Power.

Gibney stated that he considers Musk to be an "extremely" serious threat to democracy.

The film, scheduled for theatrical release in October, raises concerns about the data the "DOGE boys" collected on U.S. citizens through their unconstrained access to numerous government agencies.