Peter Smith
By the report from Reuters, SpaceX has a contract to buy the software company Cursor for $60 billion in 2026. If the purchase does not happen, SpaceX can choose to pay $10 billion to form a partnership instead.
Not a completed acquisition
As specified in the contract, this is an option and not a finished sale. On that account SpaceX has the choice to buy Cursor but does not have a requirement to do so. On social media many reports are inaccurate because they state that the sale is already complete.
To increase its work in artificial intelligence, SpaceX is linking its operations with xAI, which is the creator of the Grok chatbot. With this potential purchase, SpaceX is able to compete with OpenAI besides Anthropic in the market for software that writes code.
By creating models that write code automatically, Cursor has become popular among people who write software. In this partnership, the software from Cursor is joined with the computer systems at SpaceX.
On the secondary market, the price for Cursor has shifted recently. As shown by the chart for the last three months, Cursor (Anysphere) is at 523.95. By this measurement, the price is 90.57 points or 14.7% lower than it was previously. With those numbers, the implied valuation for the company is approximately 24.36 billion.
In late January, the price was in the area above 620 - but in mid April, the price reached a low point near 460. Since that time the price moved upward again to a level above 520. It is possible to see that people are less enthusiastic about the company than they were when the price was at its highest point. And yet the stock is higher than its recent low points now that news about acquisitions is available.
Access to massive compute power
With this deal Cursor has the ability to use the Colossus supercomputer cluster. As this system is a group of many connected computers for training artificial intelligence, it is one of the largest systems that exists. For Cursor, this access is helpful because the company can train and grow its models more effectively.
In a statement SpaceX said that the use of its computers with the products from Cursor allows for “the world’s most useful models”. Because of this potential, the partnership is a significant part of the strategy for the company.
Timing ahead of IPO
When this news appeared, SpaceX was also making plans to sell its shares to the public for the first time. If this happens the value of the company is near $1.75 trillion and the goal for raising money is $75 billion. By those numbers the event is potentially the largest of its kind.
To summarize the agreement is a flexible plan that offers either a $60 billion purchase or a $10 billion partnership. And through the actions, SpaceX is moving into new areas of technology beyond its work in space.
Peter Smith
