A page disappears as the release widens
TikTok has permanently suspended the whole account promoting Musk, the Alex Gibney documentary about Elon Musk, according to the film's distributor. Bleecker Street learned on Friday afternoon that a permanent suspension was imminent, and the page was gone from the platform soon afterward. The company had intended to put advertising money behind selected posts, a plan that is now abandoned.[S1][S2]
The ban arrived as the film's theatrical footprint grew sharply. After taking in $70,000 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles during its opening weekend, Musk moved into dozens of cities this weekend and is playing on more than 470 screens across North America. A distributor spokesperson confirmed the company had been told of the suspension and expressed disappointment at its timing.[S1]
Bleecker Street said it is appealing the decision. Its spokesperson cautioned that a reversal would still carry a cost unless it lands during a weekend window, when audiences are most likely to notice and act on promotion for the film. TikTok did not respond immediately to a request for comment.[S1]
What TikTok told the distributor
In a message to Bleecker Street, TikTok cited what it described as a level of severity in political-policy violations and stated that certain violations lead to immediate suspension. The distributor said it was not clear which specific violations were meant. Just before the ban, the account had published two new posts.[S1]
One of those posts was a playful advertisement about how to spend the intermission of the nearly four-hour documentary, with on-screen text urging viewers to delete their X accounts, discuss a fascist hellscape and move seats that sit too far to the right. The other encouraged people to see the film before it gets shut down, a line that now reads with added irony. Since launching, the account had drawn more than 10,000 followers, an unusually large figure for a single documentary.[S1]
A film about owning the public square
Gibney spent more than three years investigating his subject's actions and companies, and the documentary devotes much of its second half to Musk's political work with DOGE and beyond. It also examines his takeover of Twitter, which the director presents as an effort to control the digital public square, lending the TikTok suspension a measure of potency and irony.[S1]
TikTok has no formal tie to Musk, though Larry Ellison holds a partial ownership stake. Ellison appears awkwardly in the film, where a text is shown offering to pay billions to help finance the Twitter acquisition. The platform has been less accommodating to Musk-related material than rivals: it declined to reverse its stance and accept a trailer advertisement even after Meta and Google/YouTube did, while X has refused any advertising for the film. David Ellison is set to release the documentary through his newly acquired HBO, which financed it, in 2027.[S1]
