All of the major social media platforms are refusing to run ads for the upcoming Musk documentary, which hits theaters Oct. 9, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Google-owned YouTube and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram have declined to run trailers for Musk, much to distributor Bleecker Street’s surprise. So has TikTok, which in the U.S. is run by an Oracle-backed joint venture. According to THR, all three tech firms cited reasons related to “political content.”
TikTok does not allow political ads. Meta has restrictions on political ads but not a strict ban, just pre-authorization. YouTube only requires disclosures. But all of those restrictions have until now mostly been understood as applying to political campaigns/parties and advocacy or lobbying groups, not Hollywood.
Not only has Elon Musk-owned X (née Twitter) refused to acknowledge Bleecker Street’s ad inquiries, X won’t “even accept advertising for any of its other films on its upcoming calendar,” THR wrote.
THR reported TikTok and YouTube “are still entertaining the petitions” from Bleecker Street to reconsider, though Meta is not and has rejected the distribution company’s appeal. None of the social media companies immediately returned THR’s requests for comment.
One might be forgiven for initially being worried Musk might be some kind of Melania-esque sycophantic vomit pile, but it’s actually directed by respected documentarian Alex Gibney and described by Variety as “a lacerating portrait of technocratic brilliance, power lust, and crackpot delusion.” (POV Magazine described it as simply “the totality of dread.”) Trailer’s here, by the way.
In other words, this is exactly the kind of thing that might piss off Musk, who has a notoriously thin skin and needs no excuse to slip into a fit of rage. Musk already has: he responded by tweeting Gibney has “ZERO integrity” and is a “horrible human.”
Musk’s webs of companies and business interests weave all throughout Silicon Valley and beyond—that’s how you become the world’s first temporary trillionaire. He has wealth, business relationships to threaten, and other methods of influence, not to mention an army of right-wing trolls and/or government officials who indulge his every grievance. No telling whether he’s called any of those favors in, or tech firms are just helping shush the baby as a matter of habit.
This whole antagonist of reality situation Musk has going on, THR previously reported, almost resulted in Comcast-owned Universal declining to distribute the finished film overseas because it got cold feet on a topic “politically sensitive for parts of the Trump administration.” That’s despite the film’s overseas rights costing a “significant sum” for Universal, according to THR. Universal later said it would support the film.
As THR mentioned, documentaries rely particularly heavily on word of mouth via social media, so this could be a big blow to the documentary’s promotional campaign. It’s the latest in a series of reminders that corporate consolidation is increasingly limiting avenues of commentary and artistic freedom.
But Musk can’t stop people from talking about how much he doesn’t want them to see Musk, can he? Perhaps that Streisand effect will kick into motion soon enough.