Ike Barinholtz in Talks to Play Elon Musk in Luca Guadagnino's Upcoming Film 'Artificial'

Actor Ike Barinholtz is in talks to play Elon Musk in Luca Guadagnino's upcoming film "Artificial," a comedic drama centered on artificial intelligence. Barinholtz will portray Musk during a dramatized retelling of the 2023 OpenAI boardroom shakeup. The film explores the dramatic few days when Sam Altman was ousted and reinstated as OpenAI CEO. Andrew Garfield is set to play Altman, with Yura Borisov playing Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder.

Actor Ike Barinholtz is in talks to play Elon Musk in Luca Guadagnino's upcoming film "Artificial," a comedic drama centered on artificial intelligence. Barinholtz will portray Musk during a dramatized retelling of the 2023 OpenAI boardroom shakeup. The film explores the dramatic few days when Sam Altman was ousted and reinstated as OpenAI CEO. Andrew Garfield is set to play Altman, with Yura Borisov playing Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder [1].

The film, produced by Amazon MGM, is expected to shoot later this year with a planned release for 2026. Guadagnino, known for his films including "Call Me By Your Name" and "Challengers," is directing the project. Simon Rich wrote the script and will also produce, with Jennifer Fox also in talks to produce [2].

The plot is described as a comedy-drama about the few days between Altman’s firing and re-hiring as OpenAI’s CEO in November 2023. The film will also include other billionaires such as former OpenAI vice president of research and current Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella [2].

In the real-life scenario, Altman, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and was installed as CEO in 2019, was fired by the company’s board on Nov. 17, 2023. The board stated it no longer had confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI. Altman was later reinstated on Nov. 22, 2023, after hundreds of employees threatened to quit [1].

Elon Musk, co-founder of OpenAI, publicly split from Altman and the company, entering into legal disputes. Musk's portrayal in the film is expected to include scenes of "villainy and comic relief," according to a leaked script [2].

The film's production comes at a time when Elon Musk is focusing on his artificial intelligence startup, xAI. Musk's xAI is planning to raise up to $12bn in debt to accelerate its expansion plans, with the funds mainly used to finance the purchase of advanced chips from Nvidia [3].

References:
[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ike-barinholtz-elon-musk-openai-movie-1236326964/
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/07/23/billionaires-elon-musk-and-sam-altman-will-be-portrayed-in-upcoming-film-artificial-what-we-know/
[3] https://www.marketscreener.com/news/elon-musk-is-betting-on-debt-to-propel-xai-in-the-ai-race-ce7c5cd2dc81f724