Elon Musk has hurled plenty of insults at filmmaker Alex Gibney in the lead up to the theatrical release of the documentary Musk, which is playing in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles and expands nationwide on Friday.

When the project was first announced three years ago, Musk dismissed it as a “hit piece.” In recent weeks, Musk has posted on X that Gibney is an “idiot,” a “horrible human,” a “shill for the far left,” and a “tinfoil hat crackpot” with “zero credibility.”

And following the feature’s debut at the Venice Film Festival last month, Musk posted that dog feces are “worth more respect than Gibney.” The trillionaire has reportedly not seen the film and did not reply to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

The project is facing resistance that goes beyond public insult trading. Distributor Bleecker Street has struggled to run paid promotions across major social platforms. By Sept. 25, X, TikTok, Meta, and YouTube had refused advertisements. Meta and YouTube later changed position, stating the material had been flagged for “political content.”

Questions have also emerged regarding whether Musk will air on HBO as originally intended following the Skydance merger, which combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery. David Ellison, chief executive of the newly formed company, is the son of Larry Ellison, a close friend of Musk.

“Would Musk be able to call Larry or David and say, you know, don’t put this doc on? Yeah,” Gibney said in an interview with the AP. “We live in that world now, particularly a world that’s become so transactional in the political realm … it’s literally pay to play.”

Legal threats from Musk’s legal team have also surfaced. However, Gibney has pushed back publicly, posting regularly on X from his main account and a newly created handle, @muskfilmfacts, designed to counter false claims and highlight potential content suppression. Writing on X, Gibney noted his project is “about a ‘free-speech absolutist’ who has threatened a lawsuit to try to stop the film from being seen.”

The Oscar-winning director drew on lessons learned while directing his Scientology feature, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,emphasizing that the key is to “not let them get inside your head.”

“We also have a lawyer who’s really, really good,” he said. “Because, of course, we vet this stuff very carefully.”

Gibney spent nearly four years making the documentary, which offers a comprehensive look at the reach and influence of the world’s richest man. The narrative follows his rise from early Silicon Valley ventures to SpaceX, Tesla, and DOGE, the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency that overhauled federal staffing last year.

Read More: ‘Musk’ documentary goes nationwide this week after getting under Elon’s skin