identity

Is there anything more worrisome about today’s tech titans than the fact that they present as abundance-minded optimists but in actuality are gluttonous, scorched-earth pessimists? Documentarian Alex Gibney is no stranger to dissections of corrupting power — from his feature dives into Enron, Elizabeth Holmes and Scientology. He frames his deeply researched four-hour psych eval “Musk” as the reality check we all need when the world’s richest, most cult-powerful human keeps pushing migration to Mars. Musk might need Earth to become uninhabitable to justify the trip.

Musk’s Tesla cars, SpaceX rockets and Starlink satellites have inspired awe while his “dark MAGA” politics, limited knowledge and petty ego have made him plutocrat Enemy No. 1. Other behavior-coded prisms through which to view Musk — an immigrant whom American fascists love — include his oft-stated belief that we’re living in a simulation. He also loves video games. Gibney sporadically complements his archival materials and many interviews with the metaphoric imagery of player-one gaming: toggling between identities, first-person shooter modes. He also shrewdly compares Musk to the protagonist of a 1930s film adapted from an H.G. Wells story, “The Man Who Could Work Miracles,” about an ordinary guy bestowed with world-altering powers by the gods. (It doesn’t go well.)

There’s even a computer-generated Elon, a by-product of Gibney not securing a face-to-face interview with the tycoon himself. Avatar Musk, meant to appear like AI slop and spouting commentary culled from the totality of his recorded interviews, is pretty gimmicky. But its strangeness also seems appropriate, considering the epic oddity of the South African’s ascension from mistrusted Silicon Valley wannabe to ever-confident cheerleader for space dreams and electric vehicles. Musk is savvy at securing investment, whether his shiny pronouncements about the future prove real or not. It’s why Gibney’s surest, most clear-eyed take is that Musk is less a visionary than a self-promoter — selling Autopilot in Teslas when it led to deaths, being recklessly bullish about AI — and the greatest artificial stock-pumper of all time.

Musk’s forthright, crusty dad Errol sounds almost proud that something was bullied out of his son, but the movie avoids filling out that traumatic childhood. More heartbreaking is ex-wife Justine Musk’s well-articulated experience of Musk’s cruel domestic side — especially where trans daughter Jenna was involved. Ashley St. Clair, the right-wing influencer and one of Musk’s many baby mamas, chillingly completes the portrait of someone who sees fatherhood as an NDA arrangement to help facilitate a genetic army. She watched him up close as he cozied up to Donald Trump, grew his online fandom after taking over Twitter and consolidated his data power. St. Clair simply calls him a “nuke,” one that might readily self-detonate at the slightest bruising of his self-image.

With a built-in intermission dividing his rise (SpaceX, Tesla) from his rightward shift (Twitter, Trump), it’s wild how much the documentary’s second half makes you long for the garden variety tech-bro obnoxiousness of the first. The running time seems a lot for one’s tolerance of a supervillain story and not enough, since the story of DOGE, a venal propaganda folly with a human cost, really needs its own separate feature.

Even a four-hour “Musk” can’t keep up with the unelected trillionaire’s financially self-serving governmental meddling, considering the recent news of his involvement in a Department of Defense AI warfare study. Maybe his conning can be curtailed someday, but the thought there’d ever be enough distracting chaos for a similarly lengthy follow-up is almost too much to bear.

It remains illegal in California for a school district to force teachers and other staff to alert parents about their child’s gender identity, but parents must be told when they ask about it, a judge ruled Tuesday in a widely watched case dealing with parental rights.

San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael Sachs, weighing both state law and a Supreme Court order, rejected an attempt by the Chino Valley Unified School District to reinstate its mandatory parent-notification policy.

“There is no requirement that the school district, on its own, after learning of transgender issues, contact parents and let the parents know of them,” Sachs said in court. At the same time, “in the event a parent makes an affirmative inquiry of a minor child regarding their status, whether transgender or not, that will trigger an obligation by the school district to respond.”

Under the Chino Valley policy, approved in July 2023, a school would have to notify parents of any request by a student “to use pronouns that do not align with the student’s biological sex or gender listed on the student’s birth certificate or other official records.” The same notification rules applied to the use of bathrooms or participation in sports.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta immediately challenged that policy in court and it was put on hold. In October 2024, Sachs had ruled that most of the policy was discriminatory — and therefore illegal — because it singled out a group of students for treatment that was different than the treatment of other students.

As an example, he cited the possibility that a student would come out confidentially to a school counselor — and then that counselor would immediately be required to alert the parents, even against the student’s wishes.

A policy that could result in mandated actions by a school employee continues to conflict with the intent of a 2025 California law that barred a school system from forcing teachers to tell parents about a student’s gender, Sachs concluded.

“That’s inappropriate and it’s still inappropriate,” Sachs said Tuesday.

New rules, new rulings

What has changed in the legal landscape, he added, is what happens when a parent requests information about their child’s gender status or sexual orientation or any number of other issues affecting that child.

Trial court rulings — affirmed by a Supreme Court majority in March — said that parents have the right to demand information about their child’s gender identity at school. School staff cannot lie to parents — including matters that a student wishes to conceal from their parents.

Attorney Emily Rae, representing Chino Valley, said Sachs was correct to acknowledge that parents had the right to information about their child, but that his ruling did not go nearly far enough — and that parent notification should be mandatory statewide.

Chino Valley also has a separate pending court challenge to the 2025 California law, contending it is at odds with the direction of the Supreme Court, which should take precedence.

Dept. Attorney General Delbert Tran, representing the state, declined to be interviewed Tuesday, but in his exchanges with Sachs, it was clear that he saw the ruling as about as much of a win as would be possible, given the Supreme Court’s recent directives.

He also said that supporters of parent-notification policies misstate or misunderstand the parent-teacher relationship that exists in practice and under state law. Parents, he said, have the legal right to observe classes and meet with teachers, and the expectation is that teachers will communicate freely and often with parents about a child’s needs and progress.

Chino Valley champions its view of parent rights

Chino Valley, a school district of 26,000 students in San Bernardino County, has adopted and defended a series of policies favored by parent activists, religious conservatives and President Trump under the leadership of school board President Sonja Shaw, a Republican currently running for the office of state superintendent of public instruction.

Under her leadership, the school system has taken a stand for a flag-ban policy in schools and classrooms, widely viewed as targeting gay pride flags; for removing school library books with passages deemed to be sexually obscene, and for working to ban trans athletes from girls sports and girls locker rooms.

Shaw attended Tuesday’s hearing and criticized Sachs’ reasoning.

“When he talks about a parent has a right to know now only if they ask, how do you know you’re being lied to or secrets being kept?,” Shaw said after the hearing. “That absolutely makes no sense.”

Shaw said the judge should have done “what’s right: Upheld parents’ constitutional right to the upbringing of their own child.”

In anticipation of Sachs’ ruling against the original policy, the Chino Valley school board revised the policy, expanding it to all students. Under the current policy, if any student “requests a change to their official or unofficial records, parents/guardians shall be notified to ensure that parents/guardians are informed and involved in all aspects of their child’s education.”

In other words, if a straight male student named William suddenly decided he wanted to be referred to as Robert on the class roll sheet — an official record — his parents would be notified.

In 2024, Sachs accepted this version of notification because students were not singled out for different treatment on the basis of their gender.

That form of the policy remains in effect.

Since that time, Shaw said, the district has been “transparent” with parents regarding important issues in the lives of their children. And Tuesday’s ruling would not change that.

Moving forward, she added, the district could assertively ask parents if they want to be informed about their child’s gender issues and that permission — if given — would continue to apply as the student proceeds through grade school.