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A documentary offering a critical portrait of billionaire Elon Musk has been blocked from promoting itself on TikTok, following a similar ban on X, formerly Twitter, stirring fresh controversy.
TikTok suspended the paid advertising account for the documentary "Musk" on grounds of violating its political content policy, according to The Hollywood Reporter and other US entertainment outlets Sunday (local time).
The film's distributor, Bleecker Street, said it received a warning from TikTok on Friday that its paid promotional account would be permanently suspended, and that paid content-boosting activity had since become impossible.
The move came just as the film was expanding from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles to 470 locations over the weekend, a critical window for its marketing push.
TikTok said Sunday morning that "the ad account restriction was an error" and that the account had been restored to normal. For the distributor, however, the suspension meant losing the prime promotional window from Friday through Saturday.
TikTok had also previously blocked the film's trailer from being posted and warned that related content was in serious violation of its political content policy, according to reports.
"Musk" examines the billionaire's childhood trauma, personal life, allegations of manipulating the X algorithm, his role in the Trump administration, ties to far-right political forces, and a series of contradictory and far-fetched statements.
Director Alex Gibney described Musk as "an extremely dangerous person," to which Musk responded sharply, saying "a piece of dog shit is more deserving of respect than Gibney."
After the film was invited to the Venice Film Festival — one of the world's three major film festivals — and secured a North American release, X refused outright to run paid advertisements for it.
Meta and YouTube also initially declined to carry ads for the film, citing political content concerns, before reversing course and attributing the rejections to errors after the decisions drew criticism.
Because TikTok has no direct connection to Musk, the reasons behind its account suspension have drawn considerable attention.
The documentary briefly features Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder who leads TikTok's US operations. The film also reveals a text message in which Ellison offered to invest billions of dollars in Musk.
Both Ellison and Musk are considered close allies of President Donald Trump and are supporters of the Republican Party.
husn7@heraldcorp.com
