Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney said Tuesday that he believes he has uncovered the truth behind persistent claims that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk helped steal the 2024 presidential election for Donald Trump.

According to reporting by Variety's Marlow Stern and Ethan Shanfeld, one of the most eye-opening revelations in Gibney's documentary "Musk" concerns the 2024 presidential race and comes courtesy of Ashley St. Clair, a former far-right pundit who mothered one of Musk's children after sliding into his Twitter direct messages.

Gibney told the outlet he approached the subject with caution. "I have to be careful with this one because this was the issue on which Elon's lawyer threatened to sue us," he said. "What Ashley told us — and also showed us in terms of the texts she got from Elon — was Elon felt certain that Trump had won long before anybody else knew. And she said, 'Really? How did you know that?' And then he sent her a text, and the text said, 'I found an anomaly in the matrix, and I have 10,000 space lasers that help me understand this.' Now, what does that mean? Well, obviously that refers in some way to Starlink."

The director offered his own interpretation of the message. "Nobody thinks — at least I don't, and I don't believe Elon did either — that that means he switched votes in the election of 2024, but I do think it meant that he found some way to intercept signals of reporting from ballot places so that he knew well in advance," Gibney said. "It puts in your mind this idea that Starlink is not just a means of communication; it's a means of surveillance and control."

Starlink is SpaceX's satellite internet service, a constellation built to beam broadband from orbit to consumers, businesses, and government users. That reach is part of what gives Gibney's framing its significance: his reading of the text turns the question from what Musk knew into a question about the infrastructure his companies operate.

The Trump White House, when asked by AlterNet in June about the claims that it stole the 2024 election, adamantly denied the accusations.

"AlterNet does nothing more than pump out glorified press releases for the Democrats that are chock full of left-wing conspiracy theories," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told AlterNet at the time. "For the three people reading this, here's the truth: President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections. The President has urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting."

Republicans, meanwhile, are aware that Musk remains politically and legally vulnerable, regardless of whether he illegally meddled in the 2024 presidential election. As far back as July, then-Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers in Michigan argued that he should be elected to the Senate to protect Musk from Senate investigations.

Gibney's account stops short of alleging vote-switching, and the White House denies the broader theft claims, leaving the meaning of the texts themselves as the central open question around the documentary. Any direct response from Musk or SpaceX to the film's specific claims — and whether the episode feeds the Senate-level scrutiny Republicans like Rogers have already flagged — is the natural thread to follow.

This article is based on reporting published by Alternet.