By Joe Brock
NEW YORK, June 12 (Reuters) – Soccer fans expecting little more than selfies and street noise in Times Square instead found themselves swept into another global spectacle on Friday, the blockbuster stock market debut of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Clusters of supporters in national colours, in town for World Cup matches across the United States, mingled with finance traders, tourists and Musk fans outside the Nasdaq exchange, where the rocket company’s record-setting public listing turned a financial event into something closer to a pre-match carnival.
“We had no idea any of this was happening,” said Paul Tracey, a 47-year-old police officer from Scotland, who was in New York with friends before heading to his team’s opener against Haiti in Boston.
“Bit of a bonus. There’s a good buzz about the place,” Tracey said of the SpaceX spectacle, adding with a laugh that he would not be investing. “If I had the money maybe but I spent all my money coming here for the World Cup.”
Musk’s image loomed over the crowd from giant screens on the outside of the Nasdaq building as some snapped selfies, others debated the fortunes of the $1.75-trillion company and Musk’s rise to becoming the first trillionaire, while many tourists looked on, bemused.
Others were more tuned in. Lucas Honario, 29, a finance worker originally from Brazil and now living in Rhode Island, deliberately stopped by en route to Brazil’s match against Morocco on Saturday.
“It’s doing great things in that industry,” he said of SpaceX. Asked which he would back if forced to choose – Musk or his national team, the five times World Cup champions – he did not hesitate. “I’ll say the Brazil team.”
Brazilian fans arriving from further afield stumbled on the scene by accident.
Barbara Althoff, a psychiatrist from southern Brazil who had travelled via Mexico for the opening ceremony, initially mistook the crowd for an emergency.
“We didn’t know what was happening,” she said. “For us, it was a surprise.”
Once told about the SpaceX event, she shrugged off the finance talk and focused on football, predicting confidently that Brazil would lift a sixth title.
Mohamed Azdamou, a Boeing employee and Morocco fan from Seattle, said he had wanted to witness the first trade of Musk’s firm before his team’s match-up with Brazil.
“It’s amazing to see what SpaceX is doing,” he said, his arm around a friend who had travelled from Morocco for the tournament.
“But we’re really here for the football.”
(Reporting by Joe Brock; editing by Clare Fallon)
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