Musk's Lawyer Sent the Director a Letter. The Documentary Is Still Coming Out.

Elon Musk's lawyer has sent a documentary filmmaker a letter accusing him of building a nearly four-hour film around a debunked conspiracy theory — and refusing to fact-check it before release.

On September 3, 2026, attorney Alex Spiro sent a legal notice to a producer at Jigsaw Productions, the company behind director Alex Gibney's new documentary "Musk." The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and is headed for theatrical release in October 2026.

At the center of the dispute is an insinuation Spiro says the film makes: that Musk's Starlink satellites were somehow involved in vote tabulation that helped swing the 2024 election toward Donald Trump. "Starlink was not connected to vote tabulation," Spiro wrote, calling it a conspiracy theory that election officials, independent cybersecurity researchers and fact-checkers had already refuted back in November 2024.

The film builds part of that insinuation around an on-camera interview with Ashley St. Clair, a former MAGA-aligned influencer and Musk's ex-partner, who describes text messages Musk allegedly sent her on October 6, 2024, referencing "'Lasers' from space" and saying he had "over 10 thousand lasers in space right now." Spiro's letter argues the film strips that language of its real, far more mundane meaning: "Starlink's satellites communicate by laser inter-satellite link; that is what 'lasers in space' describes."

Jigsaw Productions responded by standing behind the film, saying the right to "open debate and fact-based examinations of powerful public figures" is "protected by the First Amendment." Musk declined to be interviewed for the documentary; Gibney instead used an AI-generated deepfake of Musk that delivers lines built from Musk's own public statements.

Ashley St. Clair, whose interview sits at the center of the dispute, was blunt about how seriously she takes the legal threat: "They are more likely to colonize Mars than win a defamation case against Alex Gibney."

Genevieve Lakier, a First Amendment scholar at the University of Chicago Law School, said a defamation claim against a documentary like this one would face a demanding legal bar. "It's a very demanding standard, and even if the documentary included a statement that turns out to be wrong, that is not actual malice," Lakier said — adding that a pre-release legal notice is a familiar tactic whether or not a lawsuit ever follows: it's "used all the time to try to chill and suppress speech."

No lawsuit has been filed as of this writing — only the legal notice sent to Jigsaw Productions. The documentary's theatrical release is still on track for October 2026, and Gibney's team has given no indication the film will be recut or delayed. The letter arrives just weeks before the film reaches the public.