SpaceX buys Cursor for $60 billion: the largest deal in the history of AI development

Elon Musk’s SpaceX announced the purchase of the startup Cursor, one of the most popular AI tools for programmers. The deal will be worth $60 billion, making it one of the largest in the history of the technology market.

The American aerospace company SpaceX announced the acquisition of startup Anysphere, the developer of the popular AI programming assistant Cursor, reports xrust. The cost of the transaction will be $60 billion, or approximately 4.7 trillion rubles at the current exchange rate. The purchase will be paid for in SpaceX shares, without the use of cash.

The news became one of the most discussed in the technology industry in June 2026. Until recently, Cursor was considered a promising, but relatively highly specialized tool for developers. Now the startup becomes part of Elon Musk’s business empire and gains access to huge computing resources that were previously inaccessible to it.

What is Cursor and why is it worth tens of billions of dollars

Cursor is an AI assistant for programmers created by Anysphere in 2022. The service helps you write code, look for errors, explain complex program fragments, and even independently perform some of the developer’s tasks.

Over the past two years, the so-called AI Coding market has grown at an explosive pace. Companies are willing to pay top dollar for tools that speed up software development and reduce personnel costs.

Cursor turned out to be one of the main beneficiaries of this trend. The platform is used by millions of developers around the world, and the company's revenue has grown to billions of dollars annually. According to industry publications, the startup was among the fastest growing IT companies in the world.

Cursor's competitors are solutions from OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and other major players in the artificial intelligence market. However, it was its specialization in programming that allowed the company to occupy a noticeable niche and attract the attention of the largest investors in Silicon Valley.

Why did SpaceX need a startup for programmers

At first glance, the purchase looks unusual. The company is best known for space rockets, satellite communications and the Mars exploration program. However, in recent years, Elon Musk’s business has been actively expanding towards artificial intelligence.

After integrating xAI into the SpaceX structure, the company’s management began to look for ways to accelerate the development of its own AI products. One of the weak points was considered to be tools for programming automation, where competitors occupy leading positions.

Purchasing Cursor allows you to solve several problems at once:

• get a ready-made audience developers;
• strengthen positions in the corporate AI segment;
• use Cursor technologies to improve your own models;
• combine SpaceX's computing power with the startup's software developments.

In fact, we are not just talking about buying a popular application, but about acquiring an entire ecosystem associated with the development of software based on artificial intelligence.

The deal was prepared in advance

Interestingly, cooperation between the companies began long before the official announcement.

Back in the spring of 2026, SpaceX announced a strategic partnership with Cursor and received the right to subsequently acquire the startup for a fixed amount of $60 billion. Then many analysts perceived this information as an unusual, but not guaranteed, scenario for the development of events.

However, a few months later the right to purchase was exercised. According to media reports, the agreement provides for completion of the transaction in the third quarter of 2026 after completing the necessary regulatory procedures.

Why the market is discussing this purchase

Experts call the deal the largest acquisition of a venture-backed startup in the history of the industry. It is especially symbolic that it occurred almost immediately after SpaceX’s record IPO, during which the company’s capitalization exceeded $2 trillion.

In fact, Musk used the sharply rising shares of his own company as currency to buy one of the most promising players in the artificial intelligence market. This strategy has long been used by major corporations, but the scale of the current transaction was unprecedented.

On specialized forums and in developer communities, the reaction was mixed. Some believe that Cursor will gain access to computing power and accelerate product development. Others fear that after integration into Musk's structure, the service may change its development strategy or focus on the tasks of the SpaceX ecosystem.

What will happen next

For the artificial intelligence market, this deal could become one of the key events in 2026. If the integration is successful, SpaceX will have a strong position in the fast-growing AI developer segment and will be able to compete with industry leaders not only in space, but also in software.

In turn, Cursor will have access to infrastructure worth tens of billions of dollars, including computing power for training new artificial intelligence models. It was the lack of such resources that was previously cited as one of the main limitations to the company’s further growth.

While market participants wait for the deal to close, one thing is clear: the struggle between the largest artificial intelligence developers is reaching a new level, and the AI ​​Coding market is becoming one of the most valuable areas of the entire global technology industry.

From the pages of Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and Axios.

Xrust SpaceX buys Cursor for $60 billion: the largest deal in the history of AI development