SpaceX has obtained an option to purchase the AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion.

      SpaceX revealed the agreement on X, getting ahead of a New York Times report that characterized it as a finalized acquisition. The deal structure provides SpaceX with options: they can either exercise the call option by the end of the year or opt out after paying $10 billion for shared computing access and collaborative model development. Cursor's CEO, Michael Truell, referred to it as a partnership to "scale up Composer."

      SpaceX has secured a call option to acquire the AI coding startup Cursor, created by Anysphere in San Francisco, for $60 billion later this year, or alternatively pay $10 billion for the joint AI development efforts the two firms are engaged in together.

      The arrangement was announced by SpaceX in a post on X on Tuesday, stating that "SpaceXAI" and Cursor are collaborating to "create the world’s best coding and knowledge work AI." This post was released just ahead of a New York Times article that cited two sources claiming that SpaceX had struck a deal to buy Cursor for $50 billion. The Times later updated its story to reflect SpaceX’s own description of the agreement as an option rather than a completed acquisition.

      Cursor's CEO, Michael Truell, confirmed the deal in a post on X, expressing his enthusiasm for partnering with the SpaceX team to enhance Composer, which is Cursor’s proprietary AI model. The option period extends until the end of 2026.

      Whether SpaceX chooses to exercise the $60 billion option will partly depend on the progress of the joint model development in the coming months. No specifics regarding employee transfers or integration have been made public.

      The commercial rationale is evident for both parties. Cursor, which is a version of Visual Studio Code with advanced AI integrations, was developed by Anysphere, a startup founded in 2022 by four MIT students: Michael Truell, Sualeh Asif, Arvid Lunnemark, and Aman Sanger. The company has experienced rapid growth, setting benchmarks for AI startups.

      It was valued at $400 million during a Series A in mid-2024, climbed to $2.5 billion by January 2025, raised an additional $900 million at a $9.9 billion valuation in June 2025, and secured a $2.3 billion Series D in November 2025 at a valuation of $29.3 billion. By February 2026, it had surpassed $2 billion in annual recurring revenue, earning the title of the fastest B2B company to reach that milestone in approximately three years, based on widely accepted metrics.

      More than half of the Fortune 500 companies utilize Cursor. Co-founder and CTO Arvid Lunnemark left in October 2025 to establish Integrous Research, an AI safety lab; the other three co-founders continue to manage the company.

      For SpaceX, which integrated Elon Musk’s AI venture xAI in an all-stock deal in February 2026, valuing the combined entity at $1.25 trillion, this deal addresses a notable gap.

      While OpenAI’s Codex has achieved three million weekly users and Anthropic’s Claude Code has emerged as the most popular AI coding tool among professional engineers, xAI currently lacks a comparable product.

      The Colossus supercomputer in Memphis, designed to operate with one million H100-equivalent GPUs, provides SpaceX with large-scale training infrastructure, yet it lacks a leading application to utilize it effectively. The partnership with Cursor fills that gap. SpaceX has already employed two Cursor engineers, Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg, following the departure of xAI's co-founders. Last week, xAI began leasing computing power to Cursor, allowing the startup access to tens of thousands of xAI chips to train its latest model, indicating that the commercial relationship existed before Tuesday’s announcement.

      The context surrounding an initial public offering (IPO) is significant. SpaceX is preparing for a planned Nasdaq listing in June 2026, with a target valuation of $1.75 trillion and a goal of raising up to $75 billion.

      The $60 billion option for acquiring one of the fastest-growing AI developer tools adds both narrative and commercial value to that prospectus, regardless of whether the option is ultimately exercised. For Cursor, the agreement offers financial certainty, presenting either $10 billion in near-term cash for the collaboration or the potential for a $60 billion exit without the necessity of an immediate sale. This is particularly important as Cursor was concurrently engaged in discussions over the weekend to raise $2 billion at a valuation exceeding $50 billion in a separate funding round, with Andreessen Horowitz anticipated to co-lead and participation from Nvidia and Thrive Capital as well.

      It remains uncertain whether that funding round will occur concurrently with or instead of the SpaceX agreement.

      This deal also clarifies the competitive landscape in AI coding tools. Cursor had previously declined acquisition approaches from OpenAI.

      OpenAI’s response includes continuing to advance Cod