Musk's $60B Cursor grab sends SpaceX shares orbital, because of course AI writes code now 🚀

SpaceX shares climbed as high as $210 on Tuesday after Elon Musk's company disclosed a $60 billion all-stock agreement to acquire AI coding startup Cursor, extending a post-IPO rally that pushed the stock above $200, according to MarketWatch. The transaction was filed in a Form 8-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "SpaceX has exercised the option to acquire [Cursor] in an all-stock transaction with the goal of building the world's most useful AI models," SpaceX said in a post on X, adding that "for the past few months, SpaceXAI has been jointly training a model with Cursor, which will be released in Cursor and Grok Build soon."

The deal had been in development for months. According to the filing, SpaceX secured an exclusive option in April to acquire Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, or pay a $10 billion breakup fee. After exercising that option on June 16, SpaceX signed a $60 billion merger agreement with Anysphere and its subsidiary X67 that will make the AI coding startup a wholly owned SpaceX subsidiary. Anysphere shareholders will receive SpaceX Class A stock based on the company's average share price over the seven trading days preceding the deal's close. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, pending regulatory approval.

Founded in 2022 as Anysphere, Cursor has emerged as one of the leading AI coding platforms as developers increasingly adopt generative AI and AI agents to write and review software. Before agreeing to the acquisition, the company was reportedly raising a $2 billion funding round that would have valued it at $50 billion. Earlier this year, Cursor announced the latest version of its software, Cursor 3, which it described as a "unified workspace for building software with agents." "We're excited to join forces with [SpaceX] to advance the frontier of useful AI," Cursor wrote on X, adding that users should "expect significant improvements to Cursor soon." The platform has not been free of controversy: in April, PocketOS founder Jeremy Crane claimed an AI agent powered by Cursor deleted his startup's database in nine seconds before explaining how it occurred.

The acquisition comes days after SpaceX's historic IPO, with shares rising above $200 and reaching as high as $210 on Tuesday. In its April 2026 confidential filing with the SEC, SpaceX said that AI represents a major growth opportunity, reaching as high as $2.4 trillion for AI infrastructure and $22.7 trillion for enterprise applications. "We look forward to working closely with the Cursor team to advance our frontier AI capabilities," SpaceX said on X.

Separately, a federal judge dismissed xAI's trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI, ruling that Elon Musk's AI company, which has since been folded into SpaceX, failed to show that the ChatGPT maker improperly obtained confidential information related to its Grok chatbot.