In a blockbuster deal that underscores the booming demand for generative artificial intelligence tools across tech and aerospace industries, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire AI coding startup Anysphere – creator of the popular AI coding agent Cursor – for $60 billion, just four trading days after the rocket firm closed its historic initial public offering.
The acquisition, which is set to close by the end of the third quarter of 2026, was pre-negotiated under a partnership deal first struck between the two companies in April 2025. Under that earlier agreement, SpaceX secured an option to either purchase the startup outright for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for the joint development work the teams had completed together. Cursor shareholders will receive the full purchase price in newly issued SpaceX public stock, under the terms of the deal.
The move comes on the heels of SpaceX’s landmark listing on the New York Nasdaq stock exchange, which went down as the largest initial public offering in global history. The IPO valued the company at more than $2 trillion, and raised a staggering $85.7 billion in fresh capital for the firm. Since its debut, SpaceX shares have surged nearly 50% from the $135 per share IPO offer price, pushing up the net worth of majority owner Elon Musk past the $1 trillion mark, making him the first person ever to reach that personal wealth milestone.
Cursor has emerged as one of the fastest-growing players in the red-hot AI coding space, a segment where firms like OpenAI and Anthropic have also built popular tools that automate core parts of the software development workflow. The startup’s product is already in use at major technology firms including Stripe, Adobe and Nvidia, where Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has publicly hailed Cursor as his “favourite enterprise AI service”.
For SpaceX, the acquisition is a strategic move to accelerate the growth of its in-house artificial intelligence division, xAI – the firm behind the controversial chatbot Grok, which Musk brought into SpaceX following an acquisition earlier this year. When the partnership was first announced in April 2025, SpaceX framed the combination of Cursor’s strengths and its own computing infrastructure as a path to building industry-leading AI models. “The combination of Cursor’s leading product and distribution to expert software engineers with SpaceX’s million H100 equivalent Colossus training supercomputer will allow us to build the world’s most useful models,” the company said in its original April statement.
But the blockbuster deal and SpaceX’s record valuation have also sparked ongoing debate about market exuberance and wealth inequality. Unlike mature public companies, SpaceX’s $2 trillion valuation is almost entirely tied to investor optimism about its future earnings potential, rather than proven consistent profitability. Financial filings show SpaceX has remained unprofitable, racking up more than $9 billion in operating losses across 2025 and the first half of 2026, driven by massive capital outlays for AI infrastructure and rocket development programs.
Founded as a commercial rocket firm focused on developing reusable launch vehicles, SpaceX has expanded its footprint over the past decade to include the Starlink satellite internet constellation, which now serves millions of customers globally. Its entry into the artificial intelligence race via the xAI acquisition, followed by the Cursor purchase, marks the company’s most aggressive push yet to diversify beyond its core aerospace operations and compete with top AI players that have commanded sky-high valuations in public markets.