Alex Gibney [left] and Elon Musk [Source: AP]

Elon Musk has called filmmaker Alex Gibney a lot of names leading up to the theatrical release of the documentary “Musk,”.

This is playing in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles and expands nationwide on Friday.

Over the past few weeks, Musk has posted on X that Gibney is an “idiot,” a “horrible human,” a “shill for the far left,” and a “tinfoil hat crackpot” with “zero credibility.” When the documentary was announced three years ago, he called it a “hit piece.”

After its premiere at the Venice Film Festival last month, Musk wrote that dog feces are “worth more respect than Gibney.”

The trillionaire has reportedly not yet seen the film and did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

Elon Musk has called filmmaker Alex Gibney a lot of names leading up to the theatrical release of the documentary “Musk,” which is playing in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles and expands nationwide on Friday.

Over the past few weeks, Musk has posted on X that Gibney is an “idiot,” a “horrible human,” a “shill for the far left,” and a “tinfoil hat crackpot” with “zero credibility.” When the documentary was announced three years ago, he called it a “hit piece.”

After its premiere at the Venice Film Festival last month, Musk wrote that dog feces are “worth more respect than Gibney.”

The trillionaire has reportedly not yet seen the film and did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

There are also concerns about whether “Musk” will eventually land on HBO as originally planned in the aftermath of the Skydance merger, the new entertainment giant created by Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. CEO David Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, is friendly with Musk.

“Would Musk be able to call Larry or David and say, you know, don’t put this doc on? Yeah,” Gibney said in an interview with the AP. “We live in that world now, particularly a world that’s become so transactional in the political realm … it’s literally pay to play.”

There have been threats of lawsuits from Musk’s camp as well. But Gibney is also leaning into it, posting regularly on X from his own account and through a newly created one called @muskfilmfacts, which is actively dispelling false narratives and highlighting suspicions of suppressed content.

Recently, Gibney wrote on X that his film is “about a ‘free-speech absolutist’ who has threatened a lawsuit to try to stop the film from being seen.”