Last month was the driest July ever recorded in the country since records began in 1836 | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Adapting to an over-heated planet means very little unless it is accompanied by addressing the root causes of climate breakdown.
Will the succession of heatwaves across Europe and the UK compel governments of all complexions to take climate breakdown more seriously? While much of the news and public conversation this summer has focused on the tragic deaths of people caught in wildfires, floods, and storms, less attention has been paid to how heat waves kill people directly.
When the temperature rises to the point where the body can no longer cool itself, this is termed “uncompensable heat stress”, or UHS, and has long been known to have a disproportionate risk for the over sixties: The older you are, the less you can sweat; your heart works harder and your blood vessels are less able to widen, all adding to the risk of heat stress and early death. In an ageing and warming world, people older than sixty will increase in numbers to 2.1 billion by 2050 and are more likely to succumb to UHS.
Last year, one of the hottest ever on record in Britain, analysis from the UK Health Security Agency put excess deaths due to heat-related factors at 1,504. As of June this year, most of the country had already experienced four heatwaves, causing 2,877 excess deaths. Since then, there have been more heat waves with early indications of another in September, meaning a huge increase in heat-related deaths as compared to the previous year.
This rapid escalation in heat-related deaths is worth considering in a context where previous forecasts on the rate of climate change have proved to be too optimistic: Heavily populated Europe appears to be heating up much faster than the average, and research on the ability of forests to soak up greenhouse gases and help prevent climate breakdown has turned out to be less than expected.
Meanwhile, the naturally occurring El Niño/La Niña climate cycle is entering a “heating phase”, which is likely to further increase global heating and disruptive weather in the coming months. On Friday, the Met Office warned that this year’s El Nino is likely to be the most intense in recent memory. “We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event,” Prof Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the UK Met Office, told the BBC. “I have never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts.”
Sleep-walking towards disaster
Why are we sleepwalking towards disaster in this way when it simply does not make sense? Of the many reasons, three stand out; each requiring concerted governmental effort and leadership.
First, what needs to be done is a mammoth task. Not only will we have to radically decarbonise our economies, but we will need major changes in behaviour including a much less meat-based diet, far less use of air travel and far greater use of electricity generated from renewable resources, and a far more circular economy.
Second, the current economic system where neoliberal economics in its various forms is simply not fit for purpose. Crucially, when it comes to climate breakdown the need to act a decade or more ahead of impact is incompatible with free market ideology that believes that the market works best when it has the minimum of regulation. The kind of economic planning and management that the risk of climate breakdown requires is anathema to the very idea of a free market.
Moreover, this is in addition to the runaway wealth that the current free market system favours. So endemic to the system is the accumulation of wealth and political power in the hands of an elite few, that any attempt at an environmentally sustainable economy “for the many, not the few” will be strongly resisted by the few.
Finally, there are the well-resourced right-wing think tanks and lobbies determined to maintain the status quo. The Atlas Foundation alone “provides training, networking, and grants for libertarian, free-market and conservative groups around the world” working with nearly 800 groups in over a hundred countries.
There is already support in the UK and many other countries for adapting to a warmer world, including much better funded emergency services, improved housing and better ventilation, but a core problem remains.
Adaption currently envisaged means very little unless it is accompanied by addressing the root causes of climate breakdown, especially the burning of fossil carbon in the form of coal, oil or gas. All that adaptation does is give us a few extra years before we are overwhelmed by even higher temperatures and wilder weather, and that goes on, and on, with far more of the world becoming uninhabitable.
The heat excesses of the past year will have killed many tens of thousands of people across the world, especially among the poorest. It is vital to shift the political mood enough to truly accelerate the necessary changes. There is a small chance that further devastation caused by El Nino might focus minds on the reality of climate breakdown, but the likes of Trump and most of the global oligarchy will do all they can to prevent that.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark RichardsGreenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)
dizzy: UK government’s inaction and support of climate-destroying datacentres suggests that Burnham & Co are likely to permit the Rosebank and Jackdaw North Sea oil and gas fields further destroying the planet.
A person holds signs during a nationwide protest against AI data center expansion outside Peace Hall in New Port Richey, Florida on July 18, 2026. (Photo by Thomas Simonetti / AFP via Getty Images)
“It seems that this industry, in particular, values speed to market more than almost anything else.”
A joint investigative report published by Floodlight and The Guardian on Thursday revealed that one of the largest planned artificial intelligence data centers on the East Coast is operating dozens of gas-powered generators without permits in a possible violation of federal law.
Using a thermal drone to take footage of the Microsoft-backed DataOne facility in Vineland, New Jersey last week, Floodlight determined that the data center was operating 45 generators at once.
The investigation noted that the generators were operating roughly one mile from two different schools, and that the gas-powered generators used as the facility “emit substantial amounts of health-harming air pollution linked to asthma, heart attacks, and even premature death.”
Bruce Buckheit, who previously served as air enforcement chief at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), told Floodlight that DataOne is likely violating federal law with its unpermitted generators, and he said the government should make the facility pay a fine for “illegal emissions.”
Buckheit added that DataOne’s apparent disregard for regulations appeared to be a common trait in the AI industry.
“It seems that this industry, in particular, values speed to market more than almost anything else,” he said.
A New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson told Floodlight that the agency is investigating DataOne’s use of gas generators but has yet to reach “a full compliance determination.”
Local residents told Floodlight that they have for months complained about the nonstop humming produced by the facility, which they suspect is being caused by the generators.
“It’s just constant,” resident Andrew Groetsch told Floodlight of the noise coming from the facility. “It never goes away.”
DataOne, which is projected to cover 2.5 million square feet upon its completion, has long been controversial.
In an interview with NBC Philadelphia published earlier this month, Vineland resident Peggy Schumacher said that the noise from the data center has gotten so bad that it’s making her neighborhood “unlivable.”
“We are a mile away,” Schumacher explained, “and the vibration in our house is horrible now.”
Fellow Vineland resident Tallis West offered a similar description of living near DataOne in an interview with CBS News published in May.
“Outside is not even enjoyable to sit outside because of the noise sometimes,” West said. “We can’t enjoy being outside anymore.”
Despite the objections of many local residents, the Vineland Planning Board earlier this month voted to approve the second phase of construction at the facility.
The tech industry’s rapid buildout of AI data centers is getting major pushback from voters across the US, as residents issue complaints about both pollution and energy consumption that has been raising their utility bills.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
Exclusive: Planning documents show datacentre in North Ockendon would be incompatible with UK net zero targets
A “hyperscale” datacentre in outer London would generate more than 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 27,000 flights from London to New York, planning documents show.
The East Havering Data Centre Campus (EHDCC) in North Ockendon would be one of the largest datacentres in Europe if approved by Havering council, using 218 hectares of green belt to run servers and data storage systems for AI and cloud computing. Its developer, Digital Reef, has described the scheme as “a unique opportunity to create a sustainable datacentre campus of the future”.
But in the planning application, Digital Reef says the £14.7bn project “does not align with a science-based 1.5C compatible trajectory and achieving net zero by 2050”. Documents estimate the development would generate more than 72m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) over its projected 60-year lifespan – 1.2m tonnes annually once fully operational.
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Donald Campbell, advocacy director at the tech justice nonprofit Foxglove, said the EHDCC’s projected emissions were “staggering”.
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The scale of datacentre emissions raises questions over how Britain’s rapid expansion of AI infrastructure can be reconciled with the government’s legally binding climate targets.
The government designated datacentres as “critical national infrastructure” in 2024, putting the tech developments on an equal footing with water, energy and emergency services systems.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows a prototype of computer glasses in Menlo Park, California on September 25, 2024. (Photo: Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said on Sunday that Americans distrust Big Tech because they “always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over.”
Opposition to artificial intelligence data centers has exploded across the US in 2026, as a recent Annenberg Public Policy Center poll showed that more than 60% of Americans say they are against building AI facilities in their areas.
However, a new survey highlighted by Futurism on Sunday shows that the AI industry has bigger problems than just the unpopularity of data centers.
As Futurism noted, the poll by CNBC found widespread distrust of artificial intelligence CEOs among Americans between the ages of 18 and 34.
In fact, more than two-thirds of respondents said they did not trust Palantir CEO Alex Karp, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, or SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to responsibly expand the use of AI.
“Those are some appalling approval ratings,” commented Futurism, “reflecting the massive swing in popularity the tech industry has experienced over the last decade, driven by concerns around data privacy, the purposeful decay of once-useful platforms, and the erosion of democracy.”
The survey comes amid signs that the AI industry knows it faces a significant deficit in public opinion.
Anthropic boss Amodei wrote a social media post on Sunday acknowledging that “the public has a negative view of AI,” which he said was “fundamentally a crisis of trust.”
“I think that ordinary people don’t trust companies, governments, or the tech industry and always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over,” wrote Amodei. “The causes of this go back decades and AI is just the latest iteration of it.”
The Anthropic CEO added that he didn’t think any positive public relations campaign could turn around people’s perception of the industry, and he said that one of the few ways it could gain trust was “actually curing cancer.”
The rapid expansion of AI data centers, pushed by President Donald Trump, has provoked grassroots campaigns in communities across the country, with people loudly opposing the facilities that have been linked to high household electricity bills, massive water consumption, and few, if any, long-term job opportunities.
Amodei’s musings about AI’s unpopularity came days after Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word manifesto, in which he pushed back on AI developers who believe the technology will “eliminate most jobs and much of humanity’s relevance,” while insisting that Meta would develop “personal superintelligence for everyone” that would put “power in people’s hands” rather than taking it away.
However, Zuckerberg’s promises of a benevolent AI future drew skepticism from TechCrunch AI editor Russell Brandom, who argued in an essay published last week that the Meta chief’s manifesto would fall on deaf ears given his own toxic reputation. Meta was recently ordered to pay nearly $1 billion in fines due to its products’ harms to children and teens.
“Suffice it to say, Facebook as a product and Zuckerberg as a person are both unpopular with the US public,” wrote Brandom. “A recent survey found that 64% of Americans believe social media has been harmful to democracy and a similar percentage believe it should be more heavily regulated, numbers that cut evenly across partisan lines.”
People’s own past experience with social media, Brandom continued, is a big reason why they are revolting against Big Tech’s ambitions to use AI to remake society.
“The public does not trust tech executives to make sure new technologies like this have a positive impact on society,” Brandom explained. “Instead of acknowledging that and trying to win back their trust, this essay demonstrates over and over again how the trust was lost in the first place.”
Brandom cited Zuckerberg’s discussion of human lawyers eventually being replaced by AI as particularly problematic, given that enabling chatbots to engage in litigation could result in a wave of nuisance lawsuits that would clog up the legal system.
“It’s hard to feel calm about any of this stuff,” commented Brandom, “and the fact that Zuckerberg isn’t worried makes me more worried.”
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.
Elon Musk became—at least temporarily—the world’s first trillionaire on June 12 after his space, telecommunications and AI company SpaceX had the largest initial public offering in history. Initially priced at $135 per share for a valuation around $1.77 trillion, shares opened at $150 and peaked on June 16 at $225.64 (a valuation of nearly $3 trillion). The price spiked after Musk announced, before markets reopened on June 15, that he believes “SpaceX might be able to reach approximately $1T revenue in 2030” (CNBC, 6/15/26).
Since its June 16 peak, however, SpaceX’s share price has fallen, steadily declining until June 22 and settling around $160 since. Markets closed on Thursday, July 2, with a share price of $162.00.
SpaceX’s big slump coincided with a mass tech sell-off last week, prompted by mounting concerns that tech firms cannot generate the returns necessary to pay off the colossal debts financing massive AI infrastructure buildouts, especially as companies are beginning to rein in their spending on AI (404 Media, 6/24/26; TechCrunch, 6/24/26).
That was likely a surprise to viewers of CNBC, whose full-day IPO coverage pumped the stock by inviting sources with vested interests to celebrate Musk’s cult of personality and obfuscate the magical thinking behind the company’s projections.
All in on business-facing Grok
SpaceX‘s prospectus has lots of pictures of space, but the details make clear that it’s really envisioning itself as an AI company.
According to its own S-1 filing with the SEC, SpaceX anticipates that its greatest earnings potential does not come from the rocket business for which it is famous, but from selling AI to other businesses. The breathless CNBC discussions entirely omitted the dubious origins of SpaceX’s gargantuan estimate of its maximum potential revenue—a key investor metric known as total addressable market (TAM).
In its S-1 prospectus, SpaceX claims a TAM of $28.5 trillion, larger than the entire GDP of China.
The document separates this figure into SpaceX’s three sectors: space, connectivity and AI. Although the filing argues that space “represents the largest economic frontier in human history,” space makes up just $370 billion, or 1.3%, of SpaceX’s supposed TAM. Meanwhile, AI makes up $26.5 trillion, or 93%, the vast majority of which is for “enterprise applications.”
Enterprise AI is a broad category of business-oriented applications for firms looking to simplify and accelerate workflows, like converting text files into presentation formats, writing and debugging string code, and automating some sales, marketing, HR and IT functions. The most popular AI assistant by far is OpenAI’s ChatGPT, followed by Google’s Google Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude (TechCrunch, 6/16/26).
A closer reading of SpaceX’s S-1 filing reveals that its $22.7 trillion estimate for enterprise AI applications does not actually represent the TAM of the company’s enterprise AI, but is instead an estimate of the size of the entire digital economy—posing a hypothetical wherein xAI’s Grok Business and Grok Enterprise monopolize all digital commerce. It’s worth noting that xAI currently has extremely limited enterprise AI market share, with a March Enterprise Technology Research survey finding that just 7% of respondents use Grok (Wall Street Journal, 5/11/26).
After SpaceX adjusted its chatbot so it would “not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect,” Grok declared that Adolf Hitler would “spot the pattern” and “handle it decisively, every damn time” (Politico, 7/10/25).
Note also that subscriptions to xAI‘s consumer AI, SuperGrok, on X (labeled “consumer subscriptions” in the chart) alone make up $760 billion, or 2.7% of SpaceX’s TAM. That’s calculated
based on the global population of individuals aged 10 and over in 2025 … multiplied by the weighted average monthly subscription revenue of $12, resulting in an annualized market opportunity of approximately $760 billion.
So if every person on the planet over the age of 9 sends SpaceX $12 every month to use Grok, the X chatbot that spent four days last year calling itself MechaHitler and promoting the Great Replacement Theory, SpaceX will take in $760 billion per year. Sounds like a business plan!
SpaceX’s public offering has all of the hallmarks of a pump-and-dump scheme, using a “staggered lock-up” schedule that allows insiders to sell off shares much earlier than most other publicly traded firms—enabling them to cash out while the stock is still grossly overvalued. This gambit is also called a “bagholder” scheme, as retail investors are left holding a rapidly depreciating asset.
While most IPOs prevent insiders from selling shares for the first 180 days of public trading, SpaceX uses an expedited schedule that allows most insiders to sell much sooner—selling off overvalued shares to retail customers.
While this pump-and-dump began with retail consumers who bought shares on the first day of public trading, these massive wealth transfers are being thrust upon working people whether they like them or not, as Musk successfully negotiated new rules that fast-trackSpaceX’s inclusion in major index funds, including the Russell 1000 and NASDAQ funds—transferring rapidly devaluing stock from SpaceX insiders to working people’s retirement accounts.
But none of this was explored on CNBC the day of the SpaceX IPO launch. FAIR could find not a single guest or anchor that mentioned that “Elon Musk’s rocket company” valued the potential for SuperGrok X subscriptions at more than twice the total projected TAM for the space industry, nor that SpaceX’s TAM is based on a scenario in which business-facing Grok controls all e-commerce—and certainly not that the IPO would essentially serve as a massive wealth transfer from retail investors to SpaceX insiders.
‘You should have bought as much as you could’
During a completely uncontentious interview with Squawk Box co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin (6/12/26), Elon Musk biographer Walter Isaacson muses, “Who knows, we may have the mining of rare earth minerals at some point—I guess we can’t call them rare earth if they’re not on earth. But I think what we’re seeing is the beginning of a whole new economy, a space-based economy.”
Instead, in the hours leading up to SpaceX’s first trade, CNBC viewers were primed by Squawk Box co-host Joe Kernen (6/12/26) lamenting that orders were being snatched up by large institutional investors, and hoping that trades would begin at under $300 per share. He assured viewers that, although he’s nervous, “whenever we’ve worried about any of these great tech companies…wherever it was on opening day, you should have bought them as much as you could.”
The rest of the influential three-hour morning program was as much of a commercial for SpaceX as this opening scene. Squawk Box‘s guests included SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell (interviewed by Morning Call host Morgan Brennan), Elon Musk biographer Walter Isaacson, long-time Musk investor David George, head of financial technology research at Citizens Bank Devin Ryan, and venture capitalist and investor Ben Narasin.
All but one of these guests have vested interests or are members of Musk’s inner circle, and used their airtime to generate excitement around the stock by focusing on Musk as a visionary key man. Kernen, co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin and guest host Melissa Lee offered no pushback.
During his conversation with Musk’s biographer Isaacson, Sorkin responded to a proposal that Musk could mine rare earth minerals in space: “I’m curious what you think of the valuation itself…. When you talk to investors, a lot of them say, ‘Look, the math may not actually math out on paper.’”
But before letting a question that could be interpreted as contentious hang too long, he answered for Isaacson:
But Elon Musk is the math. He’s been such a success over all these years. And just about everyone who’s invested with him in the past, he has found a way to make money, even if he didn’t plan to make money in a specific way originally. He then pivots and finds a way that also creates a key man risk. But I’m curious how you think about that.
Of eight guests and anchors featured to speak with Squawk Box hosts about the IPO, just one offered a critical perspective: final guest Ben Narasin, a founder of Tenacity Venture and self-described “long-term buyer of SpaceX.” Narasin contended that while he believes that SpaceX is “going to be a phenomenal company,” a bad post-IPO performance could “put a true chill on the market.”
Squawk Box also included almost no discussion of SpaceX’s TAM, with just one observation, about two hours into the broadcast, that David George, a partner at venture capital company Andreessen Horowitz, believes in it wholeheartedly. Musk is the “best entrepreneur of our generation,” George claimed, targeting “two of the most important markets in technology for our society.”
‘Doubt large numbers at your peril’
Encouraging his audience to buy into SpaceX, Mad Money host Jim Cramer (6/12/26) pitches, “Musk has the ideas and the execution. Historically, betting against him has been a terrible strategy. Betting with him? Hey, why the heck not? I’m surprised he even lets us tag along.”
Like his colleagues on Squawk Box, CNBC‘s Halftime Report host Scott Wapner (6/12/26) was also seemingly incapable of posing tough questions to those with vested interests—but when one guest expressed skepticism, he was happy to interrupt.
His guests—and SpaceX private shareholders—Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner, Hightower chief investment strategist Stephanie Link and Newedge Wealth CEO Rob Sechan pitched viewers directly to buy in early. (Link completely ignored Wapner’s question as to whether she bought into the IPO.)
Wapner jumped in to parrot Sequoia Capital partner (and Musk DOGE assistant) Shaun Maguire’s suggestion, during previous program Squawk on the Street, that SpaceX’s $28.5 TAM could be an underestimate. He echoed Maguire’s assertion that “this company has the most important mission of any company in history,” warning prospective retail investors to “doubt those large numbers at your own peril” (Halftime Report, 6/12/26).
But when Capital Area Planning Group managing partner Malcolm Ethridge expressed some skepticism as to why retail investors shouldn’t doubt the massive TAM—which, he noted, is almost the size of the US’s GDP—or buy equity in a cheaper space or AI firm with better sales, Wapner cut him off twice—once to rebut with a reminder that SpaceX’s largest revenue-generator is Starlink, and once to prompt Gerstner to offer the same explanation. (Starlink’s 2025 revenue was $11.4 billion, or about 0.04% of US GDP.)
Neither answered Ethridge’s question, but once the topic was successfully changed, Wapner and Gerstner continued peddling.
Meanwhile, during his speculative finance advice program Mad Money (6/12/26), host Jim Cramer likened SpaceX going public to putting a man on the Moon and winning the space race (an analogy he also shared during Squawk on the Street and The Exchange):
The SpaceX IPO felt just like when we put a man on the Moon. Most of you aren’t old enough to remember what that was like back then. We’ve been in a race against Russia for global suppremacy…and then we landed on the Moon…a recognition that we weren’t a nation of bozos competing as a nation of geniuses. These days, I feel the same way about China…. Then along comes Elon Musk, who’s winning the space race against the Chinese, and just got the money he needs to complete projects we haven’t even imagined yet. That’s why my emotion is one of pride.
Although he pointed out that SpaceX may be “outrageously overvalued” by “traditional metrics,” Cramer argued that he nonetheless sees it as a “long-term call on space exploration,” encouraging those who got in early to invest even more. He rattled off the often-repeated refrain that “Musk has the ideas and the execution. Historically, betting against [Elon Musk] has been a terrible strategy.” (Very famously, Musk frequently doesn’t deliver on his promises.)
‘A number so large it destroys your credibility’
CNBC‘s David Faber laughs as his guest NYU business school professor Aswath Damodaran jokes, “When I read [the S-1], I thought Grok had written the prospectus, because we know AI is subject to hallucinations.”This isn’t to say that CNBC’s coverage of SpaceX’s IPO was completely without critical perspectives: Squawk on the Street’s David Faber (6/12/26) spent much of his onscreen time grilling insider guests on whether they’ll sell early, and pushing back on vague, aspirational framing around the AI and space industries.
Faber repeatedly reminded his audience that the S-1 prospectus specifically sees most of SpaceX’s potential in enterprise AI. He skeptically took the projected $22.7 trillion TAM for enterprise AI as given, but pointed out that “it’s not clear” how SpaceX’s Grok could compete with other enterprise AI products:
It’s interesting, as much as we talk about SpaceX, as much as we hear Musk talking about space and then Starlink, the real opportunity in terms of addressing this enormous number is actually still the same opportunity that’s being sought after by Anthropic, and OpenAI, and Alphabet and others.
Squawk on the Street also featured the most critical guest by far, NYU business school professor Aswath Damodaran, who came closest to questioning the origin of the TAM of any host or guest on any of the programs:
When I read [the S-1], I thought Grok had written the prospectus, because we know AI is subject to hallucinations…. I don’t know if it’s a banker who wrote it, I would be embarrassed to even put that number out. I mean, it’s a big market. Why do you need to make up a number, a number so large it destroys your credibility?
But even in scrutinizing SpaceX’s prospects, or the true size of the enterprise AI market, Squawk on the Street’s criticism missed the bigger picture: SpaceX’s record-setting IPO is a pump-and-dump, and retail investments provide the exit liquidity for insiders looking to get out of a failing AI company.
Every day, dozens of guests representing various companies advertise their stock on CNBC for retail consumers, who trust the judgment of their favorite program hosts to give completely uncontentious interviews, essentially constituting a series of infomercials, rather than actual financial journalism. FAIR (3/18/09, 2/3/20) has criticized CNBC on this basis for decades.
So when CNBC invites SpaceX insiders with vested interests to pump the valuation of their stock on the air shortly before dumping it on retail consumers, it seems obvious why even the most critical host cannot alert his viewers to what is really going on: because CNBC’s reporting exists to boost stock, rather than protect consumers.
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