SpaceX completes Cursor acquisition for $60B
What's the story
SpaceX has officially completed the acquisition of artificial intelligence (AI) coding start-up Cursor for a whopping $60 billion. The deal, one of the largest tech acquisitions in history, was finalized on August 14. It comes two months after SpaceX announced a deal in April for the companies to develop technology together; the deal also gave SpaceX option to acquire Cursor for $60 billion. The move is part of Musk's strategy to compete with rivals such as Anthropic PBC and OpenAI.
Tech evolution
Cursor's AI assistant became a hit among programmers
Cursor's AI assistant, launched in 2023, was built to help programmers write and debug code more efficiently.
The tool quickly became a hit among software developers, making Cursor a central player in tech's "vibe coding" era.
With the acquisition, Cursor's co-founders will become billionaires and their team will have access to SpaceX's advanced AI chips.
AI advancements
1st model launched by SpaceX and Cursor
In July, SpaceX and Cursor launched their first joint model, Grok 4.5, which focused on coding, finance, and legal tasks.
The companies claimed it was cheaper to use than other competing models.
Since then, SpaceX has also launched Grok Bot, an AI agent team that takes on assignments throughout the day, and an updated version of their joint model called Grok 4.6.
Strategic moves
Multibillion-dollar deals with AI companies
SpaceX has also signed several multibillion-dollar deals with companies like Anthropic and Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. giving them access to its computing resources.
Despite these partnerships, Musk stressed in an August meeting with SpaceX staffers that the company "must succeed on the software front."
He also emphasized AI's importance in SpaceX's future, predicting that "Our AI revenue will exceed all other SpaceX revenue by September."