From DOGE to space lasers, Alex Gibney peels back the many layers of Elon Musk

Director Alex Gibney decided to expand his documentary about Elon Musk when the tech billionaire briefly became one of President Trump's closest aides and tore through the federal government, slashing agencies. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images hide caption

Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard remembers having dinner with Elon Musk in the early 2000s, when the billionaire became a key investor in the fledgling electric car company. Musk uttered words that Eberhard would never forget: "One thing that nobody can take away from you is that you're the founder of Tesla."

It left a real mark on Eberhard's mind, since Musk would later take unconditional credit for Tesla's runaway success and anoint himself its sole founder, setting off litigation and an eventual settlement that allowed Eberhard and Musk, along with three others, to all claim the title of co-founders of Tesla Motors.

Director Alex Gibney believes those remarks provide a glimpse into who Musk really is: A confidence man who will deceive, gaslight and fabricate to get what he wants.

Eberhard is one of many people who fell in and out of Musk's world who are featured in Gibney's new documentary, Musk, which never drags despite its three hour and 45 minute runtime (which includes a 10-minute intermission). It opens in theaters on October 16.

While there were very few new nuggets of information, the sheer breadth of the film makes for a stunningly comprehensive accounting of a man Gibney considers a danger to society. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images hide caption

The film traces Musk's path from his early days as a dot-com-era entrepreneur in Silicon Valley to the present, as one of the world's wealthiest people, exerting extraordinary influence over politics and culture around the world. While many people may be familiar with the general outlines of Musk's story, Gibney taps pivotal characters at crucial moments for the tech mogul to infuse this biography with new life.

Along the way, the Oscar-winning filmmaker, whose past documentaries have taken on corporate greed and government malfeasance, explores Musk's many bitter feuds and contradictions. Gibney attempts to explain how Musk is seen as both a once-in-generational business genius and an impulsive and deranged chaos agent.