Top social media platforms are reportedly declining to run paid ads for an upcoming film on Elon Musk, a documentary which the right-wing billionaire tech mogul once predicted would be the “most convincingly terrible hit piece” on him.
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YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Musk’s own X have all refused to run ads for Alex Gibney’s “Musk,” a searing look into the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s businesses and political influence, according to reports by The Hollywood Reporter.
The trailer for “Musk” was released Thursday and featured snippets of his life, including his many controversies.
Check out the trailer for my new film, “Musk.” It’s about a “free-speech absolutist” who has threatened a lawsuit to try to stop the film from being seen. https://t.co/ssJFMJ7Xcg
— Alex Gibney (@alexgibneyfilm) September 24, 2026
HuffPost has reached out to the social media companies for a statement, but has not yet received a response from YouTube, TikTok and X.
However, according to The Hollywood Reporter, YouTube, TikTok and Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, have all cited “political content” as the reason why they’re not running the ads.
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A Meta spokesperson emailed HuffPost on Saturday, “this was an error and the ads are being restored.”
The film’s distributor, Bleecker Street, has appealed to the platforms, according to the outlet, but Meta has already rejected the appeal.
The film has also drawn plenty of outrage from Musk himself. In addition to his “hit piece” commentary, he has also called Gibney “a douchebag to his core and, in his own words, incredibly biased against me.”
Alex Gibney is obviously going to make the most convincingly terrible hit piece on me that he can possibly think of.
He’s a douchebag to his core and, in his own words, incredibly biased against me. https://t.co/RegprpMxZE
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 2, 2026
Musk’s attorney put Gibney on notice earlier this month and threatened a defamation lawsuit over debunked conspiracy theories about SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. A page created on X shares what it called “Facts, sources, and receipts” from the upcoming documentary.
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