Musk's lawyer threatens Gibney with defamation suit over 'lasers in space' texts

Neither Musk nor his lawyer has viewed Gibney’s nearly four-hour film

Elon Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro has threatened documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney with a defamation lawsuit over the forthcoming film “Musk,” a nearly four-hour examination of the tech mogul’s rise scheduled for release next month. Spiro’s letter, sent to Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions and reviewed by NPR, focuses on a brief scene examining Musk’s October 2024 text messages in which he told a former partner he had “over 10 thousand lasers in space.” A representative for Gibney did not respond to a request for comment.

The letter frames the scene as promoting a debunked conspiracy theory about the November 2024 presidential election. Spiro wrote that “Starlink was not connected to vote tabulation” and that “election officials in multiple states, independent cybersecurity researchers, and fact-checkers publicly refuted the Starlink vote-rigging claim in November 2024, and nothing since has revived it.” He argued that SpaceX’s Starlink satellites communicate by laser inter-satellite link — which, he wrote, “is what ‘lasers in space’ describes.” Spiro added that Gibney and the production were “on notice, before release, that the insinuation is false, that the material refuting it is public, and that you chose not to be told the rest.”

At the center of the dispute is a text exchange between Musk and St. Clair, a former MAGA influencer who dated Musk and had a child with the billionaire. St. Clair told NPR that Musk texted her on Oct. 6, 2024 — days before the November presidential election — that he was “feeling more optimistic” about Donald Trump winning because “tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix.” When St. Clair pressed for clarity, Musk wrote that he planned on tapping “‘Lasers’ from space” and added, “I have over 10 thousand lasers in space right now.” NPR said it obtained and authenticated the text messages.

In Gibney’s film, the director asks St. Clair whether she believed Musk’s texts referred to satellites owned by his rocket company, SpaceX. She responds, “I don’t know where else he has lasers.” Spiro’s letter characterizes that exchange as an insinuation that Musk’s satellites were used to influence the election.

St. Clair dismissed the legal threat in a statement to NPR. “They are more likely to colonize Mars than win a defamation case against Alex Gibney,” she said. “Alex Spiro is sending fairy dust letters with obtuse legalese.”

Spiro wrote in the letter that Gibney and the production “refused” to hear from Musk’s team, which he described as a “conscious decision to disregard the truth.” Gibney, however, has said Musk declined to be interviewed for the film. To represent Musk’s perspective without his cooperation, Gibney featured a deepfake version of Musk created with AI, who speaks directly to the camera using Musk’s words from public appearances.

Neither Spiro nor Musk has seen Gibney’s documentary, NPR reported. The film runs nearly four hours and features interviews with Musk’s first ex-wife, Justine Musk; his father, Errol Musk; a co-founder of Tesla; and a roster of former business partners, journalists, and other critics. NPR attended a screening this week and said the film covers Musk’s childhood in South Africa, his early fortunes in the dot-com era, his acquisition of Twitter, his time in the White House, and his growing wealth and influence. Gibney’s organizing thesis, according to NPR, is that Musk is a “self-mythologizer” and “stock pumper” who became the richest man in the world by selling the public, investors, and the federal government on exaggerated promises.

Musk has used X in recent days to attack the film as a “hit piece,” writing that the Oscar-winning director’s goal was “fabricating a false film.”

Proving that Gibney’s film is defamatory under the law, however, is another matter entirely. For Musk to win a defamation case, federal law requires that his lawyers show Gibney engaged in “actual malice” — meaning Gibney knew an assertion was false and still decided to include it in the documentary.

The documentary is scheduled for release next month. No filing date for the threatened lawsuit has been announced.