On Tuesday afternoon, the richest man in the world logged on and called a documentary filmmaker “a tinfoil hat crackpot” who thinks he uses space lasers to influence elections, clown emoji included. The filmmaker is Alex Gibney, the film is called Musk, and the Musk documentary memes started rolling in before the post finished loading.
The movie opens in select theaters this Friday. Its hardest-working publicist is the man it is about.
One Threads account summed it up in all caps: Elon Musk is crashing out over the movie Musk. I have been dumped in public with more dignity than this, and one of those times I was crying into a Chili’s skillet.
It Started in Venice
The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September, and Gibney wrote afterward that it got a generous standing ovation. His reviews from Musk himself, who Gibney says had not seen it, were mostly insults and poop emojis, and Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro threatened to sue. Gibney’s response was a long post that reads like a man trying very hard not to smile.
Reddit spotted the flaw in this strategy immediately, and the replies came in with the energy of a crowd watching someone argue with a parking ticket.
That is the Streisand effect, named for Barbra Streisand’s 2003 lawsuit over a photo of her Malibu house, which mostly made a lot more people look at her Malibu house. Trying to bury something is the fastest way to put it on a billboard, and the Musk documentary memes are now basically that billboard.
Who Needs a Marketing Budget When You Have Elon?
The next chapter was the ads. Distributor Bleecker Street tried to run trailers on YouTube, TikTok and Facebook, and the platforms initially turned them down as political content, with X passing too. Later, YouTube and Meta restored the Musk documentary ads, with Meta calling the block an error, but by then the internet had already written the tagline.
I did not know this movie existed in August, and now I know the release date by heart. I have also spent years trashing my exes to anyone who would listen, which only ever made people want to date them, so I recognize the technique.
Go Watch the Musk Documentary Trailer Before He Posts Again
The film runs nearly four hours, opens in select theaters on October 9 and goes nationwide on October 16. You can watch the official Musk trailer on YouTube right now, which at this point feels like the most rebellious thing you can do on a Wednesday.
Elon, if you are reading this, please keep posting, because the box office needs you.
Elon’s last space detour gets properly roasted in 13 SpaceX Moon Memes Roasting Elon For The Mars Pivot. For a billionaire fight with better casting, read The Best Musk Trump Feud Memes: Billionaires Fighting Like Divorced Parents. Anyone who loves a famous person typing first and thinking later should bookmark Dumbest Celebrity Tweets Are a Public Service the PR Industry Will Never Forgive Us For Sharing.
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Phil M., Co‑Founder & Content Strategist
Phil is one of Thunder Dungeon’s co‑founders, doubling as our resident meme analyst and dark‑room brainstormer. He specializes in trend‑spotting across social platforms and shapes the editorial calendar to keep our galleries fresh, topical, and worthy of your valuable procrastination.
