How has Elon Musk, a man who does not seem especially smart or impressive, acquired more wealth and power than almost anyone else in American history? Director Alex Gibney’s new four-hour documentary about the world’s first trillionaire may be the best attempt to answer this question that we will likely ever get. Since Musk has been so deeply entwined in the political, economic, and technological fabric of society for decades, the film also serves as a pocket history of 21st-century America by itself. As one interviewee, journalist Katie Drummond, says, it’s kind of too late to do anything about his power now—the best we can do is understand how it happened. This documentary succeeds at that, laying bare how he conned his way to astronomical power.

Right off the bat, Gibney reveals Elon’s Twitter reaction to the documentary’s production announcement back in 2023, declaring that it will be a hit piece and calling Gibney a douche. So obviously he wouldn’t be participating, but Gibney solves this problem by, hilariously, assembling a computer-generated simulation of Musk (a rather flattering likeness of him actually, far more svelte than the man actually is), which pops up throughout. Gibney’s team compiled a database of everything that Musk has ever said—and he’s said quite a lot—so the simulation is Musk’s own thoughts.

The design theme of the documentary mirrors another of Musk’s favorite things: The chapters of his life are presented as video game levels. The section on his penchant for siring tons of children by many different women is the Kublai Khan level, for example (the Mongolian conqueror known for having dozens of offspring).

The strength of the documentary comes in large part from how it lays bare the patterns in Musk’s rise to global dominance. From his first company, Zip2, which was basically putting the Yellow Pages on the internet, to his second, online banking company X.com (which merged with its competitor PayPal), Musk was in the right place at the right time, though always failing, but somehow getting rewarded for it. With Zip2, angel investors came in, removed Musk as CEO, and hired professional programmers to rewrite Musk’s janky code. At the financial services website X.com, after it was merged with PayPal, Musk was CEO for about five months, but then was pushed out by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel for not being a diligent CEO (an interview with PayPal co-founder Reid Hoffman provides insight into this episode). Yet in both cases, Musk winds up winning: He sold his Zip2 shares for $22 million, and eBay bought PayPal and Musk walked away with $250 million. This is the essence of the Musk phenomenon: He somehow keeps getting more success and power (exactly like Donald Trump—no surprise they ended up joining forces).

Flush with cash from PayPal, Musk sought out the rocket scientist Jim Cantrell to start SpaceX, his rocket company. In late 2001 they went to Russia to buy intercontinental ballistic missiles, and Musk gave his usual rote humanity must become interplanetary spiel, after which the Russian scientist they met spat upon Elon’s shoes, so they went home and designed rockets themselves. Gibney interviews Cantrell and asks him one of the most interesting questions: Since Musk always holds himself out as an engineer first and foremost, is he actually good? Cantrell says Musk is a hell of an engineer but not an educated one.

Musk’s first wife, Justine, is interviewed extensively, and offers perhaps the best insights. One point she makes is how Musk strategically moves between the two worlds of engineer and corporate CEO. When his deficiencies arise in one sphere, he moves to the other. He is neither a real engineer nor a real CEO, but moving between the two spheres allows him to seem like he is both.

A highlight here is the history of Tesla. The founder of Tesla, Martin Eberhard, approached Musk to invest, and he became the lead investor. Then his ego problems emerged, leading to Musk pushing Eberhard out as CEO. Eberhard says he regrets not doing more background research on Musk before getting involved with him; he didn’t realize Musk had such a massive ego problem. A lawsuit and countersuit ensued between Eberhard and Musk, which was eventually settled, with one of the terms being that Musk be officially designated a co-founder of Tesla—a title he did not hold at the company’s inception. This is the strength of this profile, pulling back the curtain on the mythology of Musk, and showing how artificial it all is. The pattern emerges clearly: Musk moves from field to field, getting there early, not knowing much, and moving on—a rolling stone gathers no moss.

The sections detailing Musk’s business schemes are the most revealing, which the public may be aware of, but which hasn’t really been conveyed in quite this detail or on this scale before. Even more information on his tactics involving his other companies, like Neuralink and the Boring Company, would have been welcome, but the film opts for delving into Musk’s forays into politics, and, especially, his hyper-natalism, though these aspects of his persona are, again, already fairly well-known.

What emerges is a comprehensive, nearly encyclopedic catalog of the wealthiest person on the planet, and how shameless and underhanded his rise to global power has been. Musk almost seems tailor-made for discovery by extraterrestrials, if they wish to learn about humankind and why Earth is the way it is—this is one of the best places to start.