SpaceX Locks in Option to Buy AI Coding Startup Cursor for $60 Billion

The deal gives Elon Musk’s combined SpaceX–xAI super company an inroad into AI-assisted coding as it competes directly with OpenAI and Anthropic.

SpaceX's Polaris Dawn Falcon 9 rocket sits on Launch Complex 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center as it prepares for another attempt to liftoff in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Sept. 9, 2024. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

SpaceX announced on April 21 that it has an agreement in place that gives it the right to acquire artificial intelligence coding startup Cursor for $60 billion later this year.

If SpaceX does not opt to acquire the company, it will instead pay Cursor $10 billion for the collaborative work the two have already been doing. It is unclear if the payment would be made in SpaceX stock or cash.

The company revealed the deal in a post on X.

“SpaceXAI and @cursor_ai are now working closely together to create the world’s best coding and knowledge work AI,” it stated.

SpaceXAI is not a standalone company but an informal brand name used for the combined SpaceX and xAI entity after SpaceX acquired xAI earlier this year.

The April 21 announcement comes as SpaceX is anticipated to launch what would become the largest initial public offering in stock market history and also positions the rocket and AI company as a direct competitor to AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic, which power ChatGPT and Claude, respectively.

Cursor CEO Michael Truell reposted SpaceX’s announcement on X but did not make a public comment.

‘Vibe Coding’ Startup

Cursor is viewed as among the first “vibe coding” startups, providing tools that help software developers write code, record their actions via video, logs, and screenshots and use AI to write and debug programs more efficiently.

The company was valued at $2.5 billion in January 2025 and $9 billion by May 2025. That valuation skyrocketed to $29.3 billion post-money valuation when it completed a $2.3 billion Series D funding round in November 2025.

Ahead of the April 21 announcement, reports surfaced that xAI had begun renting computing power from its data centers to Cursor. The startup employed tens of thousands of xAI chips to train its newest AI model.

SpaceX and xAI merged in February in a transaction valued at $1.25 trillion, the largest merger in history. Musk described the merger as part of the company’s efforts to build what he hopes will become “the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on and off Earth.”

The public goal of the merger was to accelerate the development of orbital data centers that would power AI computing from space by fusing SpaceX’s launch capabilities and Starlink satellite network with xAI’s artificial intelligence research and Grok chatbot.