Elon Musk's SpaceX has agreed to acquire Anysphere, the startup behind the widely used AI coding tool Cursor, in a deal that values the company at $60 billion. According to Reuters, the agreement was disclosed in a SEC filing and the merger is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026.
Cursor has become one of the most talked-about tools in software development, acting as an AI-powered coding agent that helps programmers write, edit, and debug code faster. Anysphere built Cursor on top of large language models, making it a key piece of infrastructure in the fast-growing AI developer tools market.
Multiple outlets, including CNBC and U.S. News & World Report, framed the acquisition as part of a broader competitive race — with SpaceX positioning itself against AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI, both of which have their own coding and developer-facing products.
The $60 billion price tag is a striking number for a company that sells a coding assistant. It signals just how much the major players in the AI industry believe that owning the tools developers use every day is a strategic prize — whoever shapes how software gets written could have enormous influence over the entire technology industry.