The nearly four-hour documentary about the world’s richest person has faced resistance from social media platforms.
Musk, a scathing new documentary about Elon Musk, has hit a major setback just as it expands to hundreds of theaters nationwide.
TikTok has “permanently suspended” the film’s account, citing political content that violated its policies. The documentary’s distributor, Bleecker Street, learned of the move Friday afternoon, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The entire page was taken down shortly afterward.
A Bleecker Street spokesperson told the outlet the company is appealing TikTok’s decision.
The nearly four-hour film, directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, chronicles the rise of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and his growing political influence.
It premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September, then received a limited theatrical release in select New York and Los Angeles theaters earlier this month.
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This weekend, the movie expanded to nearly 500 screens in dozens of U.S. cities.
Elon Musk headed President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Affairs, before leaving after a series of public clashes with the president. The two have since made up.
Nathan Howard/REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
The documentary earned about $120,000 on Friday and is expected to gross $385,000 over the weekend, per industry estimates.
Musk, 55, has dismissed the documentary as a “hit piece” and lashed out at Gibney on X, calling him a “bitter old man” with “zero integrity.”
“Gibney just assembled a hit list of people who either have an ax to grind or don’t even know me (but still have an ax to grind),” he wrote in one of many posts about Musk.
Musk was highly critical of director Alex Gibney in a series of posts on his platform X.
Yves Herman/REUTERS/Yves Herman
Deadline’s Matthew Carey said the film “depicts the world’s richest man as petty, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, cruel, [and] detached from humans at a personal level (including various ex-partners and many of his children).”
On Monday, the Associated Press reported that Musk has not yet seen the film and did not respond to a request for comment.
TikTok, which is partly owned by Musk ally Larry Ellison, also turned down paid ads for the film.
Musk was named the world’s richest man in 2021, overtaking Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Kylie Cooper/REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
Both YouTube and Meta initially rejected paid ads for the film, but later backtracked after a wave of social media backlash.
X, which Musk owns, has reportedly refused to run ads for Musk or any of Bleecker Street’s other upcoming releases.
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