A major American movie studio that paid millions for a hit documentary is now considering paying a “kill fee” just to get rid of it, because the film might upset Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
When the Musk documentary premiered at the Venice Film Festival this month, the audience applauded for five minutes and shouted “thank you” at director Alex Gibney. That’s pretty much the reception every studio dreams of. Yet the studio that bought the film is now debating whether to bury it altogether.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Universal Pictures, which acquired the international rights to Alex Gibney’s four-hour investigation of the world’s richest man back in 2023, has gone quiet on the filmmakers, set no release date, and (per two sources) may simply hand the rights back to the filmmakers rather than release a movie that has become “politically sensitive for parts of the Trump administration.” Nobody at the White House ordered them to do this. But nobody needed to. Musk called the film a “hit piece” and a “psy op,” and his lawyer sent a letter putting everyone involved “on notice” over the documentary, which will resurrect damning allegations about Musk’s time at DOGE within the Trump administration.
Now, executives at Universal — whose parent company, Comcast, has billions in business sitting before Trump’s government — are wringing their hands over whether to kill the movie and silence themselves.
I keep writing about this phenomenon because it’s become a hallmark of America’s democratic corrosion. It’s what historians call “anticipatory obedience” or, more simply, self-censorship. The same reflex has afflicted the world’s most powerful entertainment companies during the second Trump administration. CBS’s parent company paid Trump $16 million over a routine interview edit that he sued them over. Disney paid another $15 million and briefly yanked a late-night host off the air. Law firms who used to sue Trump over unconstitutional actions instead lined up to kiss the ring and offer millions in pro bono services to Donald Trump’s administration, rather than get added to a White House blacklist.
These many capitulations reinforced the bully’s view that threats are effective… and that American institutions will fold before even getting hit.
If the executives weighing this decision want to know how what capitulation looks like over time, they should crack open a history book. During the Red Scare, the studio chieftains who caved to the anti-communist blacklist probably told themselves the whole ordeal was temporary, prudent, and probably just the price of doing business. But nobody goes back today and looks at their box office numbers when considering their legacies. These men are remembered for cowardice. Full stop.
The blacklist era is taught in film schools as Hollywood’s enduring shame, and the industry has basically spent seventy years apologizing for it, handing back honorary awards and restoring stolen screen credits to the writers it betrayed. And if the people at Universal would rather consult someone still alive, they can ask the leaders of those law firms I mentioned above, who bowed to Trump. Each of them now carries that surrender into every meeting and appearance in Washington because the handful of firms that didn’t capitulate won in court and made the rest look like fools. Trust me. It’s the first comment that gets whispered when they enter a DC restaurant, and it’s the paragraph that will lead their obituaries one day.
The deals business titans are cutting with Donald Trump are meant to buy them peace (or so they think). In reality, they’re the purchase of a permanent reputational asterisk. A little star that will sit there attached to their name for all eternity indicating that they were bullied by a would-be dictator and speedily complied. In fact, “capitulation” is the only crisis-management strategy I’ve ever come across that has a 100% failure rate in the historical record. Remarkably, the people considering it always seem to think they’ll be the exception.
Which brings me to a man named Brian Roberts. He is the CEO of Comcast. He may ultimately be the person who decides whether to kiss Trump’s shoes or tell the president and Elon Musk to pound sand.
While the latest news reporting places the current deliberations over the Musk documentary inside Universal Pictures itself, that’s not where the buck will stop. Universal answers to Comcast, which has already faced pressure from the Trump administration for its coverage at NBC News. Indeed, the FCC is run by a man who reportedly “privately reveres” Elon Musk, the agency is already investigating Comcast, and (as the Hollywood Reporter notes) angering him “could potentially bring more legal and regulatory headaches for the Brian Roberts-led conglomerate.” Roberts may never personally own the final decision, but he doesn’t have to. The regulatory gun is pointed at his company, and that will do all the talking.
So I’d like to speak directly to the people in that deliberation room:
Shelving this film will accomplish nothing. Universal only controls the release of this film outside North America. Another company, Bleecker Street, is already planning to open the film in New York and Los Angeles on October 9 and nationwide on October 16, and HBO, to its genuine credit, has stood by the project and even funded additional filming. The documentary will exist, and Americans will see it, no matter what Universal does. Killing the international release won’t suppress the film. Rather, it would be an embarrassing tribute payment, a public gesture of submission from one of the most powerful media companies on Earth to a trillionaire with thin skin and a president with a never-ending grudge.
To put it in clearer terms, you would be paying a kill fee for the privilege of kneeling to Donald Trump.
In particular, I want Comcast CEO Brian Roberts to know this: you’re not alone. Take it from someone who’s been on the receiving end of this administration’s revenge machine. The fear is real, Mr. Roberts, I get it. These people want to make your life miserable. But the math is on your side. While the bullies can hurt you a little in the short term, the verdict of your actions — in this very moment — will define you in the long term. Alex Gibney made a film asking what absolute power does to a man and to a country. Whether Universal releases it — whether you release it, Mr. Roberts — will answer the question symbolically and powerfully.
Don’t you see?
If you want to go further and show other corporate leaders how to stand straight — how not to be weak-kneed — then announce the release of the film yourself. Don’t dither or decide to release the movie in global theaters when you think people have stopped caring. Go put the release date on a poster and shake hands with the director. Take pictures. Own it. In doing so, you can be the CEO that showed the world that Hollywood still has a spine. Or, if it sounds more appealing, you can join the ledger of institutions that laid prostrated at Donald Trump’s feet and let him press his Florsheim Oxford shoes on your cheek. It doesn’t sound terribly comfortable.
Perhaps you’ve already hinted at your decision. I’m reading in the news this morning that Comcast-owned Universal Pictures might be open to holding onto the film because y’all are worried about backlash from the other side of the equation. From all of us. Backlash from ordinary Americans who are getting pissed off by corporate capitulation, while we’re the ones out there going to the NO KINGS rallies and showing what a First Amendment commitment actually looks like.
If that’s the case, I guess I won’t be surprised. In my experience, institutions rarely find courage on their own. Mostly, they find audiences who demand it, and perhaps that’s where all of this is headed. Yet you still have a few days to show that you weren’t willing to get bullied this way, then that way. A few days to show you made a decision because it was the right one.
So kiss the shoes, Mr. Roberts, or make history. That’s your choice. Either way, the whole world is watching.
Your friend, in defiance,
DEFIANCE DAILY
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