Let’s face it. If we left the space race to Energy and Environment Minister Chris Bowen, Australia would be attempting to reach the stars by flapping a rudimentary pair of wings made out of solar panels with an extension cord trailing behind, plugged into a Chinese coal-fired power station.

Our aspiration for innovation would be limited by the perplex ceiling of climate guilt.

Too often we find ourselves living in a world where science has been forced through the sieve of government ambition. It settles on Western Enlightenment like ash from the fire of Reason and Merit.

Government provides proof, every day, that a Treasury cannot buy progress. Only people push humanity forward.

And they work best when society locks the Bowens of the world inside Parliament House. That’s why we built it like a maze.

There’s good news and bad news.

The bad news is, dear readers, that politicians have escaped Canberra. They wander the Earth freely with taxpayer-funded expense accounts and an open mic.

The good news is that rocket science is hard and exploding space shuttles make for bad pre-election PR. This leaves the market free for private investment and genuine competition.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the company that dared to dream.

It was never about replicating the achievements of Nasa. Musk wanted to fundamentally change everything we thought we knew about space travel. And that is exactly what he did with his re-usable rockets. Despite setbacks that brought the company to the edge of ruin, SpaceX is now poised as the global leader in space-based defence technology and humanity’s genuine launchpad for the colonisation of the Moon and Mars.

Yesterday, Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting backed SpaceX with a $US1 billion stake.

SpaceX sold 555.6 million shares and, by the end of its first day, was valued at $US1.77 trillion subsequently making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

And boy are the Left mad about it.

US Democrats have been dribbling all over social media, demanding ‘wealth taxes’ specifically for Elon Musk. How dare he employ 160,000 people around the world. How dare he be responsible for driving human technology forward. How dare he make the government look lazy and overpriced.

While government burns taxpayer money in the furnace of Woke, DEI (which I have decided to name ‘Deep Economic Insanity), aid to terror-led nations, and the insatiable public service budget, Musk needed the influx of money for a clearly defined set of civilisation-altering goals: secure the Moon, build a million-person Martian colony, create space outposts, launch orbiting data centres, and win the AI race.

Keep in mind, government struggles to fill potholes.

SpaceX may have lost $US8.7 billion between 2025 and 2026, but it created extremely valuable products in the process. Musk also has a knack for making things work.

Hancock Prospecting seems to think so too, calling SpaceX ‘one of the defining companies of the 21st Century’.

Their press release reads:

I congratulate Elon Musk on this world leading IPO. Having built two of the world’s top 10 largest companies by market capitalisation is an extraordinary achievement. And contributed significantly to his country, via his leading role in DOGE.

Elon has done what very few people in history have done – he has not just imagined the future, he has built companies capable of delivering it, and helped to keep American technology at the forefront.

SpaceX’s record speaks for itself. It was the first private company to launch a liquid-fuel rocket to orbit in 2008, the first to dock a private spacecraft with the International Space Station in 2012, and other firsts, and very critically, through Starlink, the first to begin deploying large-scale LEO broadband satellite constellations in 2019, which network is critical for communications.

We see SpaceX as a rare business: led by a truly exceptional person, technically exceptional, and operating in sectors that are crucial, and with long-term potential. Hancock favours investing in industries led by sensible, hard-working, patriotic and exceptional people. Elon excels in every regard.

SpaceX stands apart as the only company globally building integrated hardware and software across its core segments of space, connectivity, and AI. It has changed what many thought was possible – from reusable rockets to advanced connectivity – and its work will continue to shape industries, economies, and opportunities for decades to come.

This is a significant investment for Hancock, and we are pleased to have received an allocation in what has been an extremely popular and oversubscribed IPO.

SpaceX is yet another clear example of why the world needs more enterprise, more builders, and much less bureaucracy. It has delivered lower costs and greater capability by moving with the urgency and discipline that bureaucracy too often delays or prevents.

As Elon Musk says: ‘The larger government gets, the less individual freedom you have. Your freedoms have just been eroded, year after year, with more and more government, laws and regulations, and regulatory authorities.’

It terms of geopolitical influence, SpaceX is shaping up to be the next East India Trading Company, except not evil.

Elon Musk has earned his place in history many times over. Not only did he restore the name of Nikola Tesla to glory, he spent $44 billion acquiring Twitter to save digital free speech. It is a battle he is still fighting, as furious Western leaders conspire with dishonest legislation and vexatious fines to protect their regimes from criticism.

If only we had more Elon Musks in the world and fewer delinquent activists simping for socialism in the streets.

Humans can do extraordinary things when they look up rather than backwards.

Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.