@Grok, Can All the Money in the World Buy Good Taste?

Elon Musk announced on X that Grok Imagine will produce a full-length movie of Homer's The Odyssey by the end of 2026, sharing a three-minute AI-generated clip that critics describe as visually flawed and historically inaccurate. The Tesla CEO's pivot from funding a Mel Gibson-directed adaptation to using AI follows his complaints about Christopher Nolan's version, which has grossed over $300 million globally since its debut last weekend.

Elon Musk made headlines overnight when he expressed interest in funding a hypothetical film production of The Odyssey directed by Mel Gibson. The billionaire quickly pivoted to a pledge to just make the same feature-length movie with his AI tool Grok and shared an example of what that might look like. As you can probably guess, it looks like dogshit. Musk has spent recent weeks complaining about Christopher Nolan’s new version of The Odyssey , which has raked in over $300 million globally since its blockbuster debut last weekend. The Tesla CEO and his legion of whiny man-babies https://gizmodo.com/odyssey-rotten-tomatoes-fraud-fandango-2000788496 believe the film is too woke since it contains non-white actors and a trans person. Musk apparently decided Tuesday night that the only way to remedy this injustice was by creating his own version of the story. The billionaire initially replied “ I’m down https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2079756091232227665 ” when one X user floated the idea that he fund a $100 million adaptation directed by Mel Gibson. I’m down — Elon Musk @elonmusk July 22, 2026 But just 10 minutes later, he seemed to land on a better certainly cheaper idea. Why not have Grok make the entire thing? “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer,” Musk tweeted along with a three-minute clip made by Grok. Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN — Elon Musk @elonmusk July 22, 2026 The video is a mess, to say the least. The dialogue has an eerie, stilted quality. But if you have no taste and haven’t seen a quality movie made by humans in a while, you might think this is worth your time. And that’s to say nothing of the “accuracy” Musk says he’s aspiring to. Do you think Homer was familiar with orange foam earplugs, as we see Odysseus wear in the clip? And check out the rowers behind Odysseus. Notice anything weird? My favorite part is when you see the rowers in the back — Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social July 21, 2026 at 8:34 PM Yeah, those guys aren’t rowing. Their hands aren’t holding the oars and the oars aren’t touching the water. It’s precisely the kind of thing that AI would make. And even if you didn’t notice it on the first pass, your brain registered there wasn’t something quite right in the background. There are a thousand signals like that when you’re watching AI slop. You may not be able to pinpoint why it’s weird; you just know something isn’t right. Musk, as the wealthiest man in the world, has the resources to fund thousands of movies. If Mel Gibson was open to the idea, Musk could make his version of the film happen. But it’s fitting that he would instead decide that the way to create this vision would be AI. That’s the cheat code for all of this, in his mind. The problem is that he has hideous taste in visual media. Just take a look at previous AI videos Musk has shared. They’re often scantily clad anime women https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-ai-girlfriend-love-grok-desperate-2000683797 dancing around in their underwear. Or AI women telling the viewer how much she loves them https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-ai-girlfriend-love-grok-desperate-2000683797 . Grok Imagine prompt: She smiles and says “I will always love you” pic.twitter.com/cjDu3MuDCZ — Elon Musk @elonmusk November 8, 2025 An AI girlfriend never asks why you were out late trying to party on Jeffrey Epstein’s island https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-says-i-came-to-my-senses-about-going-to-epstein-island-2000718185 . An AI girlfriend doesn’t need to get paid in horses to make sexual harassment claims go away. Allegedly https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-penis-horse-spacex-flight-attendant-sexual-mi-1848953120 . Or check out the Grok video he was promoting yesterday https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2079821278681379159 . Grok Imagine makes beautiful fashion https://t.co/fpkhmD1bMc — Elon Musk @elonmusk July 22, 2026 The aesthetic to which Musk gravitates is as phony as it comes. It has a sheen that immediately reads as tacky and insincere. It’s the polar opposite of Christopher Nolan’s movies, which embrace the earnest and authentic. Even scenes that appear to be computer-generated, like the pigs in The Odyssey , were accomplished largely with practical effects https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ 0TGlpcnEHg . Whatever you think of Nolan’s The Odyssey and there are plenty of people with legitimate criticism , he’s working on a different level than anything Musk hopes to produce. Musk’s involvement simply would not make any movie better. That said, you don’t need to have good taste to finance a quality movie made by humans. If Musk acted as nothing more than a checkbook for good directors, audiences could probably get something worthwhile out of it. But he showed us his thought process Tuesday night when he pivoted from entertaining the idea of funding Mel Gibson to just letting Grok do it. All it took was 10 minutes, and the billionaire decided to go with the lazier option. And we can bet good money that whatever his version of The Odyssey looks like will be terrible. Musk is also not great about keeping his promises. Remember in October 2025 when he told Joe Rogan that he’d demo a flying car by the end of the year https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-tesla-flying-car-2000680264 ? We’re still waiting on that one. We could be waiting a lot longer for his version of The Odyssey.