Justine Musk sat for four hours of camera time to say what she hadn't said in nearly two decades. In Alex Gibney's documentary 'Musk,' which premiered at the Venice Film Festival this week, Elon Musk's first wife describes a marriage where she says she first encountered the word 'gaslighting' — and needed it.

"He was constantly remarking on the ways he found me lacking," Justine, 54, says in the film, according to People. She compares his tone toward her to a boss addressing an employee, not a husband to a wife. At their January 2000 wedding, during their first dance, she recalls him telling her, "I am the alpha in this relationship." It's not a new anecdote, she wrote almost the same lines in a 2010 Marie Claire essay. But hearing her say it on camera, in a film she reportedly turned down money to skip, lands differently.

A disputed account of a son's death

The couple's firstborn, Nevada, died of sudden infant death syndrome at 10 weeks old in 2002. Justine disputes something Elon has said publicly before: that he was the one holding their son when he died. She says it was her.

They went on to have five more children before divorcing in 2008, twins Griffin and Vivian, and triplets Kai, Saxon and Damian. (Reports differ slightly on the twins' birth year, with Page Six placing them at 22 now and Wonderwall citing 2004 as their birth year.)

Vivian, health insurance, and 'not in his nature'

Much of the documentary's weight sits on Elon's estrangement from Vivian, who is transgender and whom he described in 2024 as lost to the "woke-mind virus." Justine says Elon cut off Vivian's health insurance after she came out, and that he has never attempted to repair the relationship. "it's not in his nature," she says. She adds that he did once ask her to pass along a message: tell Vivian "I'll always love her."

Elsewhere, Justine touches on his self-consciousness, recalling him saying he couldn't "look cool or hip" because he needed to look like an engineer instead. The Times has separately reported her claiming Elon refers to the mothers of his children as "breeders", he's had eight more kids since their split, with Talulah Riley (whom he married and divorced twice), Grimes, Shivon Zilis and Ashley St. Clair.

St. Clair, who has her own children with Musk, says she joined the documentary after declining a $40 million non-disclosure agreement. She has shared what she says is a text from Elon about wanting to have a "legion of children before the civil war."

Musk himself sat out the film entirely. He called it a "hit piece" on X back in 2023, before it was even finished shooting. Gibney's reply at the time: "How would you know?" Musk's representatives did not respond to Page Six's request for comment on the new claims.

'Musk' opens in theatres October 16. Whether Elon responds before then, or waits for the wider release to react, is the next thing worth watching.