Review: The world's first trillionaire gets an exhausting, though not exhaustive profile in 'Musk'

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred Is there anything more worrisome about today’s tech titans than the fact that they present as abundance-minded optimists but in actuality are gluttonous, scorched-earth pessimists? Documentarian Alex Gibney is no stranger to dissections of corrupting power — from his feature dives into Enron, Elizabeth Holmes and Scientology.He frames his deeply researched four-hour psych eval “Musk” as the reality check we all need when the world’s richest, most cult-powerful human keeps pushing migration to Mars.

Musk might need Earth to become uninhabitable to justify the trip.Musk’s Tesla cars, SpaceX rockets and Starlink satellites have inspired awe while his “dark MAGA” politics, limited knowledge and petty ego have made him plutocrat Enemy No.1.

Other behavior-coded prisms through which to view Musk — an immigrant whom American fascists love — include his oft-stated belief that we’re living in a simulation.He also loves video games.

Gibney sporadically complements his archival materials and many interviews with the metaphoric imagery of player-one gaming: toggling between identities, first-person shooter modes.He also shrewdly compares Musk to the protagonist of a 1930s film adapted from an H.G.

Wells story, “The Man Who Could Work Miracles,” about an ordinary guy bestowed with world-altering powers by the gods.(It doesn’t go well.) Movies After tracking the billionaire’s rise and political turn, the Oscar-winning filmmaker says the scariest question may be what Musk intends to do with all his power.There’s even a computer-generated Elon, a by-product of Gibney not securing a face-to-face interview with the tycoon himself.

Avatar Musk, meant to appear like AI slop and spouting commentary culled from the totality of his recorded interviews, is pretty gimmicky.But its strangeness al...