Michael Thompson

And Jim Chalmers says tax changes will be good for productivity.

It is Friday, the 12th of June, 2026.

I'm Michael Thompson.

And good morning, Sean Aylmer.

Honestly, I'm more excited about SpaceX.

If I have to be honest, which I do on this show, Sean, let's talk about SpaceX before we get to the World Cup, shall we?

Tens of thousands of Australians have bid for shares in SpaceX, which is, of course, Elon Musk's AI and rocket company that plans to create data centers in space and colonize Mars.

Some pretty lofty goals there, but it hits Wall Street tonight.

Retail investors in Australia could apply for shares via a ComSec account.

And 30,000 different accounts did do that.

They bid for stock.

There have been bigger retail IPOs in Australia, but that's only because people were effectively kind of subsidized into companies like Telstra and Commonwealth Bank when they were privatized, which is a very different story.

Why are retail investors buying into the SpaceX story?

I mean, is it because they believe in Elon Musk and think that ultimately at some point down the track they can make loads of money?

Or is it just like almost a kind of an historic kind of thing that they just want to say they were there when SpaceX achieved liftoff on Wall Street?

Michael, I have no idea.

Yeah, that was snatching it out of the sky, just grabbing it.

Yeah, it was extraordinary.

That really is.

The thing is, though, it's not just Australians, clearly, that want to buy into SpaceX.