Luke Feltham

It was 9am in the middle of Shanghai. Daily Maverick journalist Lindsey Schutters and I had been delivered by a DiDi to a boarded-up shop window ― the wreckage of a long-closed sports bar. The location had popped up on Google as somewhere to catch the South Africa and South Korea game; what we got instead was a firm lesson to not rely on service that is blocked in the place you’re visiting, even if you think you’re smart enough to get around its firewall.

And so it begins. SpaceX has launched its initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq. More than $75bn has been raised for the offering, boosting the company past a $2.1-trillion valuation. With his 42% holding now worth about $900bn according to the Financial Times, and his Tesla holding at $280bn, founder Elon Musk becomes the first human trillionaire. Yes, those numbers are unfathomable, and it’s only going to get more incomprehensible.