SpaceX says it can buy Cursor later this year for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for 'our work together'

SpaceX said it's struck a deal with artificial intelligence startup Cursor, obtaining the right to acquire the company for $60 billion later this year, or to pay $10 billion for work they are doing together.

"SpaceXAI and @cursor_ai are now working closely together to create the world's best coding and knowledge work AI," the company said in a Tuesday post on X.

The post landed just before the New York Times published a story saying that SpaceX has agreed to purchase Cursor for $50 billion, citing two people familiar with the situation. The Times subsequently updated its story to reflect SpaceX's post.

Cursor CEO Michael Truell wrote in a post on X that he's, "Excited to partner with the SpaceX team to scale up Composer," referring to his company's AI model.

"A meaningful step on our path to build the best place to code with AI," Truell wrote.

Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and CEO, merged the reusable rocket company with his AI startup xAI in February in a deal he valued at $1.25 trillion. He's now poised to take the combined company public in what will likely be a record IPO.

Cursor is in talks to raise $2 billion at a valuation of over $50 billion, CNBC confirmed over the weekend. Andreessen Horowitz was slated to co-lead the round, with Nvidia and Thrive Capital also expected to participate. Andreessen and Nvidia also backed xAI.

Cursor develops tools to help software developers test their coding changes and record their actions via videos, logs and screenshots. For xAI, the deal represents an effort to catch up to AI competitors OpenAI, which makes Codex, and Anthropic's Claude.

Musk previously used xAI to acquire his social network X, formerly Twitter, in an all-stock transaction announced in March 2025. After a massive exodus of xAI co-founders from the company, SpaceX said recently it hired two programmers from Cursor, Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg.

Tuesday's announcement comes less than a week before Musk is scheduled to head to court in Northern California in a high-profile case against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company was an early investor in Cursor.

SpaceX and Cursor didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

—CNBC's Deirdre Bosa contributed to this report.

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