SpaceX announced the agreement on a New York Times report that framed it as a completed acquisition. The structure gives SpaceX a choice: exercise the call before the end of the year or withdraw after having paid $10 billion for access to shared computing and joint model work. Cursor CEO Michael Truell called it a partnership to “extend Composer.”
SpaceX has secured a purchase option to acquire AI Coding Startup Cursordeveloped by San Francisco-based Anysphere for $60 billion later this year, or, alternatively, pay $10 billion for joint AI development work the two companies are carrying out together.
SpaceX announced the deal in a post on X on Tuesday, describing “SpaceXAI” and Cursor working together to “Create the world’s best coding and knowledge working AI.”
The post came just before the New York Times published a story citing two people saying SpaceX had agreed to buy Cursor for $50 billion. The Times later updated its story to reflect SpaceX’s own formulation of the deal as an option, not a full acquisition.
Cursor CEO Michael Truell confirmed the deal in a post on X, writing that he was “I’m excited to partner with the SpaceX team to expand Composer,” a reference to Cursor’s proprietary AI model. The option period extends until the end of 2026.
Whether SpaceX exercises the $60 billion option will depend in part on how joint development of the model progresses in the intervening months. No employee transfer or integration details have been disclosed.
The commercial logic of both parties is clear. Cursor, a fork of Visual Studio Code with deep AI integration, developed by Anysphere, a company founded in 2022 by four MIT students: Michael Truell, Sualeh Asif, Arvid Lunnemark and Aman Sanger, has grown at a pace that has become a benchmark for startups in the AI era.
It was valued at $400 million in a Series A in mid-2024, rose to $2.5 billion in January 2025, raised $900 million to $9.9 billion in June 2025, and closed a $2.3 billion Series D in November 2025 at $29.3 billion.
As of February 2026, it had surpassed $2 billion in annualized recurring revenue, making it the fastest B2B company to scale from zero to $2 billion in about three years, according to widely cited metrics.
More than half of Fortune 500 companies now use Cursor. Co-founder and CTO Arvid Lunnemark left in October 2025 to found Integrous Research, an artificial intelligence security lab; the three remaining founders continue to lead the company.
For SpaceX, which absorbed Elon Musk’s xAI artificial intelligence company In an all-stock transaction in February 2026 that valued the combined entity at $1.25 trillion, the deal addresses a visible gap.
While OpenAI Codex has reached three million weekly users and Anthropic’s Claude Code has become the most used AI coding tool among professional engineers, xAI has no comparable product.
The Colossus supercomputer in Memphis, which targets one million H100-equivalent GPUs, gives SpaceX a training infrastructure at scale, but without a leading application through which to direct it.
The Cursor association provides that application. SpaceX had already hired two Cursor engineers, Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg, following an exodus of xAI co-founders. And last week, xAI began leasing computing capacity to Cursor, allowing the startup to use tens of thousands of xAI chips to train its latest model, suggesting the business relationship predates Tuesday’s announcement.
The context of the IPO is important. SpaceX is preparing for a planned listing on Nasdaq in June 2026, targeting a valuation of $1.75 trillion and upside of up to $75 billion.
A $60 billion option on the world’s fastest-growing AI development tool adds narrative and business value to that prospect, regardless of whether the option is ultimately exercised.
For Cursor, the deal provides financial security – either $10 billion in near-term cash for the collaboration or a $60 billion exit – without requiring an immediate sale. This is particularly notable because Cursor was simultaneously in talks over the weekend to raise $2 billion at a valuation north of $50 billion in a separate fundraising round, with Andreessen Horowitz expected to co-lead and Nvidia and Thrive Capital also participating.
It’s unclear whether that round will take place alongside or instead of the SpaceX deal.
The deal also improves the competitive map in AI coding tools. Cursor had previously rejected acquisition proposals from OpenAI.
OpenAI’s own response is to move forward with Codex, which now has three million weekly users with 40% of the company’s revenue, and with its planned acquisition of Windsurf. Anthropic’s Claude Code is the third major player.
SpaceX is now formally entering this market through the existing Cursor distribution, rather than building from scratch, a faster path to relevance, at an extraordinary price.
