Rubbish Check
CNBC Top News · 5 October 2026
source“SpaceX stock climbs to highest since June, returning Musk to trillionaire status”
R2/ 10
Lightly altered
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
12345678910
In short
Rubbish Talk rates CNBC's claim that SpaceX's stock climb returned Musk to trillionaire status a 2/10, because both the share-price move and the net-worth figure are accurately reported, with only a minor omission that Musk's Forbes valuation also depends on Tesla holdings, not SpaceX alone.
The Verdict
Lightly altered. The headline's two load-bearing claims, the share price hitting a post-June high and Musk crossing back over $1 trillion, both check out against the article's own figures, so this is close to a clean report of the base fact. The only drift is that "trillionaire status" is framed as a SpaceX story when the underlying Forbes number is a combined Tesla-plus-SpaceX calculation.
What actually happened
SpaceX shares jumped on a Monday rally, pushing the stock to its highest level since mid-June, after Morgan Stanley analysts called the stock cheap and set a $300 price target. The move lifted Elon Musk's net worth back above the trillion-dollar threshold on Forbes' real-time billionaires list, a status he'd held before the stock fell from its June IPO-day peak.
Key facts
- Shares rose almost 8% Monday, their highest level since mid-June, following SpaceX's record IPO in June.
- Morgan Stanley's $300 price target implies roughly 75% upside from Monday's $171.09 close, with the bank calling the stock "cheap."
- SpaceX hit a record close of $201.80 on June 16, then declined, bottoming in early August, before climbing roughly 58% since then.
- Forbes' real-time billionaires list puts Musk's current net worth at $1.03 trillion, a figure that factors in both his Tesla and SpaceX holdings, not SpaceX alone.
What to watch for
- SpaceX's third-quarter earnings, expected in late October, could move the stock sharply in either direction after this rally.
- The Starship upper-stage catch attempt flagged by Morgan Stanley as a potential "biggest positive catalyst since the IPO" is unproven technology; a failed test could reverse momentum quickly.
- Watch whether future coverage credits Musk's net worth purely to SpaceX or correctly attributes it to the combined Tesla-SpaceX stake, since the two are often conflated in headlines.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
