SpaceX Acquires AI Coding Tool Cursor for $60B in Stock After Record IPO
SpaceX is putting its recent IPO funds to work quickly. On Tuesday, the company said it will buy Cursor, an AI coding assistant from San Francisco startup Anysphere, for $60 billion in stock. The deal, revealed in a securities filing, should close in the third quarter of 2026, making Cursor a fully owned subsidiary. SpaceX shares went up 5% in premarket trading to $202.11. Here’s what SpaceX hopes to achieve with this acquisition and why the high price shows how competitive the AI coding field has become.
Cursor launched in 2022 and played a big role in making “vibe coding” popular. This approach lets AI tools write large parts of software code on their own. Anysphere promotes Cursor as a coding agent for building complex software, aimed at professional developers instead of everyday consumers. By buying Cursor, SpaceX gets a proven AI coding product with a solid user base.
The main reason for the deal is to help SpaceX’s Grok AI business, which has had trouble keeping up with top competitors like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and Meta. According to Vital Knowledge, this move is meant to give Grok a real advantage in coding, where specialized tools have been widely adopted by businesses. When SpaceX first mentioned the possible deal on its X social media account in April, it highlighted how Cursor could work well with xAI’s data center in Memphis, Tennessee.
Earlier, SpaceX said it was considering two options with Cursor: buying the company for $60 billion or forming a $10 billion partnership. In the end, SpaceX chose to buy Cursor outright. OpenAI and Anthropic, both major rivals in AI coding, are expected to go public later this year. This made it even more important for SpaceX to secure a unique product before those IPOs change the competitive landscape.
SpaceX raised $75 billion in its IPO last Friday, which gave the company the money it needed to make such a large deal right after going public.