Tesla CEO Elon Musk has played himself in several movies and television series. A 2026 film about OpenAI, which Musk co-founded, will see an actor play the world's richest person instead.
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What Happened: Actor Ike Barinholtz may be gaining extra attention these days thanks to his role in "The Studio," an AppleTV+ series that recently made history at the Emmy Awards.
In 2026, Barinholtz could land extra attention for his portrayal of Musk in the film "Artificial" from director Luca Guadagnino.
Speaking with Variety at the 2025 Emmy Awards, Barinholtz said he has not reached out to Musk and doesn't plan to about portraying him on the big screen.
"I'm okay," Barinholtz said when asked about reaching out. "He's famous enough where you get it."
Asked about preparing for the role of Musk in the film from Amazon MGM, a unit of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Barinholtz offered an interesting take.
"I started poisoning my brain by watching lots of interviews with him."
Barinholtz was also asked about the pressure of playing Musk in a film, given that he has a large platform behind him.
"I hope if he puts me into a gulag, it's one with a lot of my friends, that way we can have a party."
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What’s Next: Set for a 2026 release, "Artificial" centers on the 2023 period for OpenAI when CEO and co-founder Sam Altman was briefly fired and then later rehired by the company.
Musk left OpenAI in 2018 over a disagreement about the company's struggle with being a nonprofit versus a for-profit company. Given Musk was not active with the company in 2023, it is unknown how large of a role Barinholtz will have in the film.
A feud between Altman and Musk has been escalated in recent years with OpenAI working towards a future of commercialization.
Andrew Garfield and Yura Borisov also star in the film with Spider-Man actor Garfield playing Altman and Borisov playing OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever.
Barinholtz told Variety that the film will try to be true to life as much as possible.
"We try to keep it pretty real," Barinholtz said.
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