Key Points
- SpaceX will buy Cursor maker Anysphere for $60 billion in stock.
- Deal announced June 16, 2026; expected to close in Q3.
- Cursor posts more than $2 billion in annualized revenue.
- Folds the AI coding startup into Musk's xAI, bought by SpaceX in February.
SpaceX is buying the AI coding company Cursor for $60 billion in an all-stock deal, and the structure is the story. Announced June 16 and expected to close in the third quarter pending regulatory approval, the acquisition of Cursor's parent, Anysphere, is one of the first real tests of a freshly public company using its own stock as acquisition currency in the AI arms race.
The price was set in advance. Back in April, the two sides agreed on an option that let SpaceX either pay roughly $10 billion for a partnership or $60 billion to buy Anysphere outright. SpaceX took the second door. For context on what $60 billion in paper buys: Anysphere was in talks just two months ago to raise outside funding at a valuation near $50 billion.
Why a rocket company wants a code editor
Cursor was founded in 2022 by CEO Michael Truell and three MIT classmates, and it has become one of the few places where AI has turned into real business revenue — more than $2 billion in annualized revenue, with enterprise sales rising. The acquisition routes that revenue straight into xAI, Elon Musk's AI company, which SpaceX absorbed in February. SpaceX itself went public on the Nasdaq this month, which is what gives it the stock to spend on a $60 billion deal. That February absorption of xAI also converted its outside backers into SpaceX shareholders — Nvidia's $10 billion January check into xAI became roughly 122.8 million SpaceX Class A shares worth about $21 billion by June 30. Owning Cursor hands Musk's Grok models a developer-facing product and a foothold in AI coding, the lane where OpenAI and Anthropic have moved fastest.
"We are excited to share that SpaceX has exercised their option to acquire Cursor in an all-stock transaction," Truell said in announcing the deal.
SpaceX is not the only AI-era heavyweight tapping US public markets right now: memory-chip supplier SK Hynix has launched a $28 billion Nasdaq share sale, its first US listing, underscoring how much of the AI buildout is now being financed on public exchanges.
Comments