I just don't understand why this trailer starts with Musk accusing Gibney of this being a hit piece, then a snarky response from Gibney...and then a full trailer that sounds like a hit piece.
Maybe it's warranted maybe it isn't but it sure seems like Musk was right to be concerned.
It’s obviously got a point of view but most of what’s in it has been reported elsewhere. The value is mostly putting it together in an engaging package, plus some interviews with a couple of ex partners. And some interesting archival footage of a younger Musk I’ve never seen (though also never looked)
Overall an OK movie despite few bizarre directorial choices: letting interviewees speculate about things that are almost certainly not true in a few places, and “interviewing” an AI generated Musk on camera. Also it’s 4 hours long.
I... just don't understand your confusion? Of course it's a "hit piece". There's a market for hit pieces because there are people willing to pay to see content aimed at their favorite targets. And the trailer starts with Musk sniping to substantiate what it's about and clarify who its for.
Maybe it's that you think "hit piece" means "illigitimate?". Documentary cinema is absolutely allowed to have perspective. Musk's own communication is hardly unbiased or coolly considered, and he's been known to engage in some "creative advocacy" of his own. Would you apply the same logic there?
My own opinion is that he's a complicated guy and a seemingly textbook bipolar case with a lot of good technical instincts and a really destructive egomaniacal streak. He could do with some hit pieces, honestly.
In the trailer, there's this line: "When Musk says that the future of humanity is to colonize Mars, he is selling us dreams. That's not happening."
That irritates me a lot. Everything extremely difficult (or thought to be impossible) is a dream until someone (or some company) works hard on it and invests in it for a long time. Those that would criticize Musk & SpaceX for chipping away at this seem to be effectively saying "do not try."
Funny, for me it's the opposite: I get extremely irritated when Musk or someone else says the future of humanity is to colonize Mars. If you think you can turn a bare rock into a livable planet, please do something about Earth and global warming first.
He made an electric car the into the best selling car in the world, and is building the largest solar cell factory in the US. What more should he personally be doing about global warming?
He is the man with a plan a certain ideology wants to see eradicated. His existence is a intro to what western society has missed out on while coasting on past success build by people like him. If you dislike him why not leave the west?
This guy has actively sabotaged rail systems in multiple cities, how much of a negative impact has that had?
Let's just stop claiming he actually cares about the environment and that he just wants wealth and power and he saw a business opportunity taking over Tesla.
I wanted to say it could be argued his support for pro fossil fuel political candidate is hugely detrimental to the cause but then the war hiked oil price so much that this morning I saw a stat that shows global CO2 emission started to fall…
Colonizing the moon first is not a bad idea and ultimately we do need to find some way of (in the far future) mitigating the sun's expansion, whether it's moving to another planet or something
Mars is just really far. You can send lots of robots. Human beings is a tougher thing
No one doubts that the work is difficult. The criticism, as the trailer makes clear in context, is not that the company is not making adequate progress, but rather that the public statements made by Musk about the progress of the company are not honest.
There is a weird immature escapism involved in such sci fi story-telling. Most adults are capable of seeing that the biggest problems are internal. Inside ourselves, within families, and more broadly, on earth, itself. Hunger, injustice, the rise of dictators and those who have successfully subverted democracy, slavery and human trafficking. If he was supposedly as capable as his self-mythologizing claims ("Chess is an easy game; I won all games that I played"), he'd pick a much more earth-bound goal. Maybe reconcile with his estranged son-turned-daughter. How about that for starters? Or not get divorced for once? Is that possible for our self-confessed genius?
There are, I think, two things that the documentary is trying to do with this statement. The first is to remind people that even visionaries selling their actions on a noble cause must still be evaluated for the negative consequences of their actions. In this case, Musk is known to be the cause of quite a few deaths in the world thanks to things like eliminating USAID [1]. People like him need to be fairly evaluated not just on the good they might potentially unlock in the future, but the evil they are unlocking today.
The second thing is to point out that Musk may not be entirely honest about trying to colonize Mars, just as some politicians may campaign on a promise to make a country great again while robbing blind the rubes who vote for them.
[1] Although I think Mark Zuckerberg still beats him in the deadliest tech CEO race, given the role that Facebook plays in the Rohingya genocide.
He's not trying to colonize mars, he's trying to get power and wealth and for you to like him. Nothing irks this man more than someone who doubts he is a saviour. It is reasonable to demand we fix the planet we currently inhabit, rather than believe a ketamine-addict that the better solution is to just let it go to hell and move on.
I get annoyed by this type of comment because Musk is obviously an over the top hype man, he sees this as his job. And he has a long history of crazy predictions that didn't come true. Any other CEO spouts some obvious marketing bs and people are appropriately cynical but Musk's defenders just really want to believe.
They are chipping away but their real motive is not mars colonization; that is a story designed to serve the venture capital needs of here and now.
That's the truth and that is what is being said here; it is not a denial that the chipping away is happening, it is a characterization of the why and how.
I think the problem is more that people doubt Musk's sincerity. And I wonder, to be honest, how it’s possible not to. Musk is no Wright and no Bell. He should be placed in the same category as people like Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi, and Gregor MacGregor. But your perspective contains another flaw: In hindsight, we see the big, daring projects that were successful. What we don’t see are the countless projects that failed. That skews the cost-benefit analysis a bit. Especially since large projects have far-reaching, often negative side effects. You can admire Hannibal for his crossing of the Alps, but no sane person would want to be one of the many soldiers who froze to death in the process.
HBO owns the rights, and it is intended to end up on HBO/HBOMax as a four part series. Interestingly, HBO's parent company is merging with Paramount, owned by David Ellison. Ellison is asking Musk for money to invest in this new company. So, Musk might end up owning it in the end...
> A YouTube spokesperson said the ad should be appearing soon, though as of late Saturday morning Bleecker Street has not yet been informed of any change.
> The Meta reversal is especially notable as the company had previously rejected an appeal by Bleecker Street, leaving it with few options to run ads on Instagram and Facebook.
> TikTok and X have remained quiet and continue not to run the ad.
I'm looking at the Theater list right now and it's not looking great maybe they're still ironing out the details. We are still a few weeks away. Social media companies can block all they want, but there are tons of art house theaters across the country that can play this thing, and they're not(so far). It's really annoying that the first run is only on these enthusiast-led theaters. It's a bad omen its as if the distributors don't have a lot of confidence in this film.
I would like to see an accurate representation of what it is that is up with Elon Musk, but I doubt there will be an objective analysis possible until the impact of the analysis is purely one of historical record.
Even then history isn't terribly objective, it just tends to be better than what is said when those who say things can gain or lose advantage based upon what they say.
Honestly, documentaries can be done extremely well even when events are occuring..or they can just be two hours of people who already didn't like the character and that you know didn't like the character sit there and talk to you on the big screen about how much they don't like the character.
Knock Down the House(AOC Documentary) was done really well and it actually followed the subjects as they were making history. You obviously watch it looking back but it takes place during the events that it describes.
Fahrenheit 11/9 is not hiding its political leaning but asks a question at the beginning ("How in the hell did this happen?!" (Donald Trump being elected)) then presents the story as a series of multiple sub-plots that are completely disconnected from each other but then become connected into an underlying finale as the story progresses. It takes you on a journey that is as captivating as a non documentary but also enables you to have a light bulb moment about the point the author is really talking about. Thats the point of a movie. You have the undivided attention of a person for two hours. How often does anyone be able to do that? Not even Trump can muster that too often. If you don't manage to capture their imagination in those two hours, you have wasted their time.
Accuracy. It doesn't seem like an unreasonable request.
Musk appears different to different people. An insight into what, if any, represents the real person, and in what contexts Musk presents a persona, and why?
Perhaps I was harsh on historians, they do strive for accuracy, but they themselves will tell you how much perspectives of the day colour the representations. In many respects, it is similar to science. The answers that history give us are not the guaranteed truth, they are just the best answers that we have a consensus on at the moment.
Maybe it's warranted maybe it isn't but it sure seems like Musk was right to be concerned.
Overall an OK movie despite few bizarre directorial choices: letting interviewees speculate about things that are almost certainly not true in a few places, and “interviewing” an AI generated Musk on camera. Also it’s 4 hours long.
and cite it as an example on https://grokipedia.com/page/hit_piece
As expected from MechaHitler themselves.
Maybe it's that you think "hit piece" means "illigitimate?". Documentary cinema is absolutely allowed to have perspective. Musk's own communication is hardly unbiased or coolly considered, and he's been known to engage in some "creative advocacy" of his own. Would you apply the same logic there?
My own opinion is that he's a complicated guy and a seemingly textbook bipolar case with a lot of good technical instincts and a really destructive egomaniacal streak. He could do with some hit pieces, honestly.
Yes, "presenting false or biased information in a way that appears objective and truthful" is an essential part of being a hit piece [1].
[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hit_piece
I have no opinion about this movie.
That irritates me a lot. Everything extremely difficult (or thought to be impossible) is a dream until someone (or some company) works hard on it and invests in it for a long time. Those that would criticize Musk & SpaceX for chipping away at this seem to be effectively saying "do not try."
He is the man with a plan a certain ideology wants to see eradicated. His existence is a intro to what western society has missed out on while coasting on past success build by people like him. If you dislike him why not leave the west?
Let's just stop claiming he actually cares about the environment and that he just wants wealth and power and he saw a business opportunity taking over Tesla.
Through Tesla and his prominent advocacy for green energies, you don’t think his doing that?
So the first thing we'd want to do is activate a magnetosphere on Mars. I rarely see anyone talking about that[2].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/real-mart...
[2] https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/how-to-give-mars-an-atmos...
Mars is just really far. You can send lots of robots. Human beings is a tougher thing
The second thing is to point out that Musk may not be entirely honest about trying to colonize Mars, just as some politicians may campaign on a promise to make a country great again while robbing blind the rubes who vote for them.
[1] Although I think Mark Zuckerberg still beats him in the deadliest tech CEO race, given the role that Facebook plays in the Rohingya genocide.
That's the truth and that is what is being said here; it is not a denial that the chipping away is happening, it is a characterization of the why and how.
It’s all bullshit to provide air cover for his sociopathic behavior and ambition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_8SyndC10
"The Major Social Media Platforms Are All Rejecting Paid Ads for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’"
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/elon-musk...
> A YouTube spokesperson said the ad should be appearing soon, though as of late Saturday morning Bleecker Street has not yet been informed of any change.
> The Meta reversal is especially notable as the company had previously rejected an appeal by Bleecker Street, leaving it with few options to run ads on Instagram and Facebook.
> TikTok and X have remained quiet and continue not to run the ad.
Even then history isn't terribly objective, it just tends to be better than what is said when those who say things can gain or lose advantage based upon what they say.
Knock Down the House(AOC Documentary) was done really well and it actually followed the subjects as they were making history. You obviously watch it looking back but it takes place during the events that it describes.
Fahrenheit 11/9 is not hiding its political leaning but asks a question at the beginning ("How in the hell did this happen?!" (Donald Trump being elected)) then presents the story as a series of multiple sub-plots that are completely disconnected from each other but then become connected into an underlying finale as the story progresses. It takes you on a journey that is as captivating as a non documentary but also enables you to have a light bulb moment about the point the author is really talking about. Thats the point of a movie. You have the undivided attention of a person for two hours. How often does anyone be able to do that? Not even Trump can muster that too often. If you don't manage to capture their imagination in those two hours, you have wasted their time.
Musk appears different to different people. An insight into what, if any, represents the real person, and in what contexts Musk presents a persona, and why?
Perhaps I was harsh on historians, they do strive for accuracy, but they themselves will tell you how much perspectives of the day colour the representations. In many respects, it is similar to science. The answers that history give us are not the guaranteed truth, they are just the best answers that we have a consensus on at the moment.
I feel like we're all required to declare fealty to a billionaire warlord and latch to their propaganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk_filmography
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/54065/did-elon-...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42903336