HBO's bombshell Musk doc inching closer to release — and legal threats are already looming

Legendary filmmaker Alex Gibney has been quietly finishing a new HBO documentary about Elon Musk, but legal experts have concerns that "deep-pocketed pushback" could stall the project — and others, according to a new report from Status.

Brian Lowry, media columnist and critic, described how Musk has threatened to drag Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) into court after the lawmaker's "assertion that the USAID cuts he engineered while overseeing DOGE for the Trump administration will cause millions of deaths." And with Academy Award-winning Gibney's upcoming documentary, executives could get cold feet.

"Gibney, the director behind memorable examinations of figures like Julian Assange, Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes, and Steve Jobs, declined an interview request, but a spokesperson confirmed he’s currently in postproduction on the film, which Bleecker Street agreed to distribute theatrically last year, before the project lands on the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned network," Lowry wrote.

"Needless to say, taking on Musk is a daunting prospect, and threatens to be complicated by the fact WBD is in the process of being acquired by David Ellison-controlled Paramount," Lowry wrote. "Facing such deep-pocketed subjects, the mere threat of lawsuits can send a chill up the spine of even relatively formidable parties. And as legal experts tell Status, with movies and documentaries on the runway tackling the likes of Musk, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, there’s legitimate concern those backbones will be tested."