Fact Check: Does the viral video show Elon Musk's Falcon 9 crashing into the moon?
STARBASE, TEXAS: After part of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket slammed into the moon, a video began circulating on social media platforms claiming to show the rocket's impact. The video has gone viral, with many believing it is the original footage, while a few others have expressed skepticism, prompting a fact-check of the viral video.
Claim: Video shows the crashing of SpaceX Falcon 9 into the Moon
The clip was originally posted on X this month, claiming to show the alleged moment of the collision of Falcon 9.
The viral clip was accompanied by a caption stating, "NEW: A SpaceX rocket has crashed into the Moon, leaving a 100-foot crater."
The clip was also shared by Musk and has also spread on other social media spaces such as Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and TikTok, collectively garnering more than a million views as of this writing.
While many comments under the post appeared to believe the video was authentic, others dismissed it, calling it fake and calling for a fact-check.
Fact Check: Fake; no satellites have captured the direct impact on the Moon
The video, however, is fake and does not show the collision of Falcon 9 with the moon, which happened on August 5. Although the Tesla CEO initially shared the clip, he later admitted that it was fake.
Though the European Space Agency, on the same day, confirmed that "the discarded upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket impacted on the Moon," there are no reports of any satellites capturing the direct impact of the object, which was predicted earlier.
Julianna Scheiman, the director of NASA Science and Dragon Programs at SpaceX, at a press conference on August 3, said that a mixture of "solar activity and gravity forces" put the remaining object on a path toward the Moon.
On August 5, Benjamin Fernando of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico also confirmed to AFP that the impact did occur.
Though several online users flagged the video as AI-generated, AI detection tools did not confirm any fabrications or detect the SynthID watermark.
Falcon 9 upper stage left in orbit
The Falcon 9 rocket, which was launched on August 1 2025, carried two lunar landers to orbit in its upper stage. "For most of our missions, we plan a controlled deorbit of the Falcon second stage so it safely reenters over the ocean," SpaceX wrote in a post on X.
"For higher energy missions like those to a lunar transfer orbit, nearly all performance on the vehicle is devoted to successfully placing the payload in the intended orbit, and a controlled disposal maneuver is not always possible."
