Today’s News

The Big Picture

• Elon Musk v Sam Altman has its day in court. Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI is ready to be heard by a California court, which begun jury selection on Monday. The lawsuit seeks to oust Sam Altman as the leader of the AI giant and claw back the millions Musk invested when OpenAI was founded as a non-profit. Some notable tech leaders are expected to be called as witnesses, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. (WSJ)
  
  

• Big Tech sees big growth in Australia. Data from the Australian Tax Office shows Amazon’s Australia revenue grew from $8 billion to $11.9 billion last year. Meanwhile Google and Meta have transferred almost $11 billion offshore in related-party transactions and only paid $140 million in tax. For example, Meta’s Australian revenue came in at $1.8 billion but it paid $1.5 billion to other Meta entities - effectively reducing the profit it makes in Australia (and the tax it has to pay to the ATO). (AFR)
  
  

• US earnings season beats expectations. So far 28% of companies in America’s S&P 500 index have reported their results for Q1 (January - March). Of the companies that have reported 84% have beaten Wall Street’s consensus Earnings Per Share expectations. This week will be a big one, with 180 companies in the S&P 500 set to report, including Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. (Forbes)
  
  

• US won’t travel to Pakistan for Iran negotiations. Over the weekend, President Trump cancelled Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s trip to Pakistan saying “Too much time wasted on travelling.” He now says that any future negotiations with Iran will happen by phone, saying “If they want we can talk, but we're not sending people to travel 18 hours to meet.” (WSJ)

  
  

• China cracks down on US investment in AI companies. Chinese AI companies will now require government approval to receive investment from U.S.-based investors. ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, was separately told that any secondary share sales involving US investors would require Beijing’s sign-off first. The policy change is reportedly in response to America's Meta buying Chinese AI startup Manus for $2 billion in December last year. (Bloomberg)

Companies in the news

• Australian toll road operator receives $7 billion bid. IFM Investors has put in a $6.9 billion bid for Atlas Arteria, the company that owns the Eastern Distributor in Sydney alongside toll roads in the US, Germany and France. Atlas Arteria was up 13% on the news. (AFR)
  
  

• US investors back nuclear energy. X-Energy, a company designing nuclear reactors backed by Amazon, listed on the Nasdaq in a $1 billion IPO. Investors piled in with shares up 27% after listing. (CNBC)
  
  

• Aussie winner from data centre rollout. Oracle signed a 6-year deal with Datapod, an Australian modular data centre operator. The deal, worth $2.3 billion, will see Oracle deploy Datapod technology worldwide to help Oracle meet its compute commitments to OpenAI and other large AI companies. (AFR)

  
  

• Meta to become major buyer of Amazon chips. Big tech is scrambling to find alternatives to Nvidia chips - with Google, Amazon and Microsoft all making their own. In a major coup for Amazon, it just announced Meta would be buying millions of its Graviton processors. Earlier this month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reported that Amazon’s chip business alone is on a $20 billion a year revenue run rate. (TechCrunch)

What the…?

From pints to petrol: the AI price trackers are here. The creators of The Guinndex, the viral tool tracking Guinness prices across Ireland are back and this time targeting US fuel prices. Their new ‘Gas Index’ uses a family of AI agents - Bobby, Hank and Peggy Hill (shoutout to any King of the Hill fans) - to call thousands of unlisted gas stations and build a dataset of fuel prices even more detailed than Google’s.

The site also includes features like “Is it worth the drive?” calculations and AI-powered price extraction from photos, with crowdsourcing filling in any gaps the bots miss. (The Gas Index Website | How The Gas Index was made YouTube)

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Today’s Insight

Super salary sacrificing vs investing outside super

Financial adviser Matt Ingram from Northhaven breaks down the pros and cons of salary sacrificing into superannuation compared to investing outside of super.

Should I salary sacrifice into super or invest outside it?

This decision usually comes down to two key considerations. The first is access and flexibility. Salary sacrificing into super means committing money you generally can’t touch until at least age 60. That can make sense if your shorter-term needs are covered and your financial position is relatively stable. But if you’re in a life stage where cash flow matters, such as paying down a large mortgage, starting a family, or funding school fees, then investing outside super can provide flexibility that super can’t. Locking money away too early can create pressure elsewhere in your finances, even if the long-term prospects and tax savings look attractive on paper.

The second consideration is tax effectiveness. Salary sacrifice contributions are taxed at 15% rather than your marginal tax rate, which can be a significant benefit for higher-income earners. If you’re on a marginal rate of 39% or 47% (including Medicare Levy), the tax saving is meaningful. That advantage narrows at lower marginal rates. At 32%, and especially at 16%, the benefit of salary sacrificing still exists, but it may not be strong enough to outweigh the loss of access to your money and the flexibility that comes with investing outside super.

It’s also important to factor in Division 293 tax. For individuals with income and concessional contributions above $250,000, an additional 15% tax applies to some or all concessional contributions. This effectively increases the tax rate on salary-sacrificed contributions to 30%. Super can still be tax effective under Division 293, but the margin of benefit is smaller and needs to be considered carefully.

One common misconception is that choosing not to salary sacrifice means you’re falling behind on retirement. In reality, many people are already building meaningful super balances through employer contributions alone. When you take a step back and look at the broader picture, including goals before retirement, debt levels, and overall tax planning, directing surplus funds to investments outside of super can often be a deliberate and sensible choice.

Want to work with an adviser like Matt to discuss your superannuation options? Fill out the form on our website and we’ll match you with one of our hand-picked advisers to help you get started.

Today in Equity Mates