SpaceX Says It Has Option to Buy AI Coding Startup Cursor in Potential $60 Billion Deal

SpaceX has announced it holds the right to acquire AI coding tool Cursor for up to $60 billion later this year, in a move that signals Elon Musk’s growing push into artificial intelligence as competition intensifies across the tech sector.

The company said it could either proceed with a full acquisition of Cursor or alternatively pay $10 billion to form a strategic partnership with the AI coding platform. The announcement was made on the social media platform X, which is also owned within Musk’s wider business ecosystem.

Cursor, developed by San Francisco-based startup Anysphere, is widely used as an AI-powered coding assistant for software engineers. Its strong adoption among developers is seen as a key strategic asset, potentially giving SpaceX access to a large and highly technical user base.

The deal would further expand Musk’s growing AI footprint, which already includes xAI, the firm behind the chatbot Grok and large-scale computing infrastructure such as the Colossus data center in Memphis, Tennessee. Cursor said collaboration with xAI would allow it to significantly scale up its AI training capabilities using that infrastructure.

In a statement, Cursor described its current limitations in computing power as a bottleneck to development, adding that access to xAI’s systems would enable more advanced model training and future product expansion.

If completed, the deal would position SpaceX more directly against major AI competitors including OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which are rapidly expanding their presence in the AI tools and developer markets.

The announcement comes as Musk continues to integrate his various companies—spanning aerospace, social media, and artificial intelligence—into a more interconnected ecosystem ahead of SpaceX’s anticipated public market plans.