Artificial Intelligence
SpaceX to Acquire AI Coding Startup Cursor in $60 Billion Deal
SpaceX enters into $60 billion deal to buy AI coding platform Cursor parent company Anysphere, and expand its enterprise AI business. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026 and, just days before SpaceX was launched on Nasdaq. Since its launch in 2022, Cursor has scaled rapidly, now has an annualised revenue of approximately $2.6 billion and is one of the leading AI developer tools in Silicon Valley.
Key Highlights
- Anysphere, owner of AI coding startup Cursor, has been bought by SpaceX for $60 billion
- It is expected to close its deal by Q3 2026.
- Cursor has about $2.6bn in annualised b2b revenue
- The acquisition could boost xAI's presence in AI-powered coding.
SpaceX announced it would purchase Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, a popular software firm, for $60 billion as part of its strategic move to move into the corporate artificial intelligence sector.
The announcement comes only days after SpaceX's blockbuster IPO on Nasdaq, which created its value at over $2 trillion making it the richest publicly listed company in the world.
Moving SpaceX Faster in Enterprise AI
SpaceX explained that the merger acquisition will close in Q3 of 2026. It had been contemplating a deal of this type for several months, the company said. In April, SpaceX put an option in place to buy the San Francisco-based company for $60 billion later this year or a new partnership worth $10 billion.
Cursor has become one of the fastest-growing AI coding platforms in Silicon Valley. The company has attracted developers with its use of artificial intelligence to automate software coding tasks, competing with rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
Cursor's Rapid Growth Attracts Attention
Founded in 2022, Cursor has grown quickly, company data previously disclosed shows it expects around $2.6 billion in annualised business-to-business sales run-rate. Along with this, enterprise sales have also increased dramatically supporting the startup in making a big statement inside an ever more crowded AI coding arena.
By acquiring it, Cursor would gain more computing power to continue working on its AI models, while SpaceX would strengthen its presence in a very fast-moving branch of artificial intelligence.
Deal Could Strengthen xAI's Position
XAI, the company behind the Grok chatbot that merged with SpaceX in February, could also benefit from the transaction. xAI has fallen behind some of its competitors in the AI coding space so far and could improve that position with the tool integration.
Cursor had a departure of two product engineering leaders who joined SpaceX to work on the lunar projects and xAI initiatives back in March.
Data Centre Secured Deals Under Investigation
The acquisition also raises questions about what it will mean for SpaceX's arrangements to lease data centre capacity but only time will tell whether or how that might change. The company recently signed $26 billion (annualised) cloud computing deals with Anthropic and Google in the last few weeks.
Both contracts contain 90 days' notice periods for cancellation, so SpaceX could restart its computing capacity in the event of needing it to scale up.
Source: Reuters
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