SpaceX acquires AI coding startup Cursor in $60 billion deal

AI coding startup Cursor in $60 billion deal">

SpaceX has closed its $60 billion acquisition of Anysphere, the company behind the AI coding assistant Cursor. The deal, confirmed by Reuters and Bloomberg, comes just two trading days after SpaceX's IPO, which valued the company at over $2 trillion. The acquisition is a strategic move to help SpaceX's struggling xAI division catch up with industry leaders Anthropic and OpenAI.

xAI, which merged with SpaceX in February, trails behind in AI-assisted coding, one of the few commercially viable areas of generative AI. As part of the deal, Anysphere's investors will receive SpaceX stock. Cursor employees had already been working in xAI's offices for weeks on a joint model.

SpaceX confirmed on X that it's training a new AI model with Cursor. The startup itself is one of the fastest-growing software companies, with over 3,000 customers paying at least $100,000 a year for its software. Annualized revenue hit $3 billion by the end of April, up from $2 billion in February.

The acquisition gives Cursor access to SpaceX's massive chip stockpile, while helping xAI in the AI talent war. xAI had lost dozens of engineers and data training staff, and Elon Musk had been pulling people from Starlink and Tesla to fill the gaps. Anysphere also owns a recruiting firm that helps top AI companies like OpenAI hire talent.

Musk's AI bets are expensive, with SpaceX posting a net loss of $4.94 billion in 2025 after retroactively absorbing xAI's debt. Capital spending doubled to $20.7 billion, with the biggest chunk going to AI. The deal comes as OpenAI recently announced its own acquisition of cloud platform Ona to better support its AI agents, and Anthropic is steadily expanding its coding business around Claude.

Why this matters: The acquisition marks a significant shift in the AI landscape, as major players like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic continue to invest heavily in the technology. For developers and businesses, this deal means increased competition and innovation in AI-assisted coding, which could lead to more efficient and cost-effective solutions. However, the high costs associated with these investments raise questions about the long-term sustainability of these ventures.

As AI talent becomes increasingly scarce, companies like SpaceX and OpenAI will need to balance their pursuit of innovation with strategic talent acquisition and retention. The outcome of these efforts will likely have far-reaching implications for the future of AI development and its applications across industries.