The Richest Man Of The World

What "The Richest Man of the World" Actually Is

The Richest Man of the World is a 2022 documentary film that follows Elon Musk through several years of his life, showing how he balances SpaceX, Tesla, X (formerly Twitter), and a bunch of other companies while his personal life quietly falls apart. It's directed by Sebastian Dehnhardt, who got unusually close access to Musk during the 2018–2022 period. The documentary doesn't try to glorify or condemn him. It just shows up and films whatever happens. I watched it around the time it came out on Netflix. It felt like watching someone document a car crash in slow motion — you can't look away, but it's not exactly comforting. The film has some genuinely surprising moments, especially in how it handles the Twitter acquisition. By the time that storyline plays out, you realize the people around Musk were trying to warn him about things that turned out to be true.

The Richest Man Of The World – How to Watch It

It's available on Netflix as an original documentary. You don't need a special subscription tier. The standard plan covers it. Runtime is roughly two hours and thirteen minutes. If you're watching on a phone or tablet, I'd recommend using headphones. The audio mixing during interview segments can get a bit muddy, and there are long stretches of ambient factory noise from SpaceX and Tesla Gigafactories that can sound like white noise if you're not paying attention. There isn't a downloadable version through official channels. Netflix doesn't allow direct downloads of documentary originals outside the app for offline viewing on mobile devices. If you want to watch it on a plane or somewhere without internet, use the Netflix app's download feature. It'll save the file to your device for a limited period. The download expires if you don't start watching within a couple of weeks. Somewhere online you might find unofficial links offering a free download. I'm not going to point you there. Those links are usually malware or phishing traps, and the video quality is terrible — compressed to something barely above a phone camera recording at a cinema. Not worth the risk.

What the Documentary Covers

The film is structured roughly chronologically but jumps around enough that it feels more like a mosaic than a straight timeline. You get early SpaceX days, the near-bankruptcy period around 2008, Tesla's production hell with the Model 3, the acquisition of Twitter, and some personal moments that most people don't see in typical Musk coverage. There's footage of him on the factory floor, late-night calls, boardroom meetings, and family time that ranges from warm to genuinely awkward. One thing the documentary does better than most bio-pieces is let Musk talk about his own failures without cutting away. Most documentaries about billionaires edit around the stuff that didn't work. This one lingers on it. When SpaceX explosions happen, the camera stays on them. When Twitter's user engagement drops after the acquisition, the numbers are shown on screen without commentary. That restraint is unusual. My takeaway after watching it: this isn't a film about wealth. It's a film about obsession and how it shapes everything around a person. The "richest" part of the title is almost secondary to what the director seems to be asking — what does it cost to build things at this scale, and what happens to the people next to you?

Things Most Viewers Miss

There are a few details in this documentary that don't get discussed much. One is how often Musk changes his mind mid-project and what that does to the people working on his teams. The film shows this several times, but it's easy to skim over because it's presented as background noise rather than a dramatic moment. Engineers and designers are described adjusting plans at 3 AM based on something Musk read online. This isn't portrayed as heroic. It's portrayed as exhausting for everyone involved. Another thing worth noting: the documentary includes footage from inside the Twitter acquisition process that wasn't widely seen before. There are moments where you can see Musk's team realizing the deal terms were far worse than anyone expected, and there's nothing they can do about it. The legal and financial mechanics of that part of the deal are explained clearly enough for a general audience but in enough detail that someone who's worked through M&A processes will recognize the actual dynamics at play. I've worked with people who were involved in projects similar to what's shown here. The gap between what the documentary presents and what actually happened on the ground is sometimes noticeable. Directors have to compress timelines and merge characters for pacing. A few scenes combine events that happened months apart. That's standard documentary practice, but it's worth keeping in mind when you're evaluating what you're watching.

Is It Worth Your Time?

If you're looking for a balanced, fair portrait of Elon Musk, this isn't it. It's also not a hit piece. It's closer to observational footage with some interview segments woven in. The director had access most journalists never get. That alone makes it worth watching once, even if you've read every article about Musk in the last five years. The pacing drags in the middle section, around the two-hour mark where the documentary spends time on Starship development. If you're not already invested in SpaceX, that section will feel slow. I'd suggest pausing and coming back to it later rather than forcing through. The final third picks up considerably once the Twitter storyline takes center stage. There's no official companion book or supplementary material released by Netflix for this documentary. Some creators on YouTube have made video essays breaking down specific scenes, and those can be useful if you want to understand the financial or technical context better. The documentary assumes you already know roughly how rockets work or what a gigafactory is. It doesn't hold your hand through the basics.

Where It Falls Short

The documentary doesn't interview enough people from Musk's inner circle who left voluntarily. Most of the critics and dissenters featured in the film are either public figures who made their concerns known online or people whose disputes were already public record. You don't get the kind of behind-the-scenes perspective that comes from someone who quit their job and chose to speak on camera. That's a real gap, and it shapes how evenhanded the final product feels. There's also the matter of access. Getting a documentary filmmaker inside SpaceX and Tesla is a privilege most people don't have. That means the footage skews toward moments Musk and his teams were willing to show. The camera captures what they allowed it to capture. That's not a criticism of the film specifically. It's just a fact about how these things work. Any documentary with this level of access will have the same limitation built into it. For a more critical look at Musk, you'd need to watch other pieces separately. "We Is Elon" by Matt McCormick and "The Social Dilemma" both address different aspects of his public impact. Neither replaces this documentary, but watching them alongside each other gives you a fuller picture than any single film can provide.

The documentary is two hours and thirteen minutes long. Plan for that. Don't try to watch it in fragments unless you don't mind losing the narrative thread. The editing is deliberate about building tension over the full runtime, and cutting it into shorter sessions breaks that intention.