Ahead of its wider release, Alex Gibney's four-hour documentary "Musk" has lost its promotional account on TikTok. The film's distributor, Bleecker Street, was told on Friday afternoon that the account faced a "permanent suspension" over its political content, according to The Hollywood Reporter. TikTok did not comment to TechCrunch or The Verge.
This is not the first refusal. Last month YouTube, Meta, X and TikTok all rejected ads for the trailer. YouTube and Google reversed within days and called it "an error". Meta followed. TikTok and X did not, and neither has run a paid ad for the film since.
Why it matters
- A rejected ad is a moderation decision. Deleting the account that runs it is something else, and TikTok has not offered a reason beyond "political content" — a category broad enough to cover most documentaries about powerful people.
- The ownership overlap is hard to ignore. X is owned by the film's subject and will not carry its ads. TikTok's US operations are partly owned by Larry Ellison, who appears in the film via a text message offering to help Musk fund his Twitter purchase. Ellison's son David runs Paramount/Skydance, which owns HBO, where the film is due to stream next year.
- The timing is the tell. The account was removed days before the film went from four theatres to a wider release, which is exactly when a distributor needs paid reach.
- Shortly before it went down, the account posted that people should see the movie "before it gets shut down". That reads less like a joke now.
Gibney has also said Universal, the film's international distributor, wavered on releasing it before committing to go ahead.