De Niro ribs Musk at 'Musk' documentary screening: "How Did That Turn Out for You?"
Robert De Niro didn’t hold back at Alex Gibney’s Musk documentary screening, tossing Elon Musk a pointed question — and no, it wasn’t a softball.
Onstage after a New York screening of Alex Gibney’s new documentary Musk Sunday night, Robert De Niro steered the conversation straight into politics and the billionaire’s public image. He took a sharp swipe at Elon Musk’s recent spending and, according to attendees, even needled the polarizing Cybertruck for good measure.
“And he just spent close to half a billion on Republicans in this past week’s election. How did that turn out for you?”
De Niro’s jabs landed in a room packed with industry figures. Tribeca Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal joined the crowd, and multiple Oscar winners were among those on hand for the screening.
The ribbing capped a bumpy road to release for the film. Gibney’s portrait of Musk has reportedly faced pushback from its subject since early development; Musk dismissed the project as a “hit piece” when it was first announced in 2023.
Inside the film
Gibney—whose docs have tackled Enron, Theranos and Scientology—takes a long, unflinching look at Musk’s rise and the reach of his companies. The movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival and runs a hefty 3 hours and 45 minutes, including a 10-minute intermission.
- Musk did not participate; the film instead stages a simulated interview using a CGI avatar and AI voice syncing built from his real past interviews, a choice Gibney has called intentionally ironic.
- Interviewees include people who moved through Musk’s orbit, among them influencer Ashley St. Clair—who, the film presents, says she had a relationship with Musk and gave birth to his 13th child—and tech journalist Zoë Schiffer.
- The documentary frames Musk as a 21st‑century confidence man and argues he’s gone all‑in on artificial intelligence, with a so‑called plan B that sidelines fears about human extinction.
As for Sunday’s screening, De Niro kept Musk in the conversation even without him onstage—puncturing the room with a political punch line and a Cybertruck crack before handing the mic back to the movie.
The project has been in the works since 2023, when Musk publicly brushed it off as a hit piece.