SpaceX to acquire AI coding startup Anysphere in $60 billion all-stock deal

The deal comes days after SpaceX’s blockbuster Nasdaq debut, which pushed the company’s valuation beyond $2 trillion.

Elon Musk-led SpaceX has agreed to acquire Anysphere, the startup behind AI coding assistant Cursor, in a $60 billion all-stock transaction, strengthening its position in the fast-growing market for enterprise AI software, Reuters reported.The deal comes days after SpaceX’s blockbuster Nasdaq debut, which pushed the company’s valuation beyond $2 trillion.

The acquisition is expected to bolster the AI ambitions of xAI, which became part of SpaceX earlier this year, by expanding its footprint in AI-powered coding tools — one of the earliest enterprise applications of generative AI to generate meaningful commercial revenue.Cursor has emerged as a prominent player in the AI coding space, attracting developers with tools that automate software development tasks.

The company competes with offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic, although analysts have noted that limited access to computing resources has constrained its growth.“Cursor does not have the scale of OpenAI or Anthropic, but it has built some very impressive coding models relative to cost.

That makes this a positive move for SpaceX,” Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.Reuters reported that SpaceX had been exploring a deal with Anysphere for months and had previously outlined options ranging from a strategic partnership to a full acquisition.

In its IPO filing, SpaceX highlighted the value of Cursor’s developer ecosystem, including access to coding requests and software design data that could help improve AI models such as Grok.Following the acquisition, SpaceX plans to integrate its AI offerings more closely with Cursor and launch additional coding-focused tools, including Grok Build, an AI coding agent that has been under development for several months.The transaction will be funded entirely through stock and is not expected to utilise proceeds from SpaceX’s recent IPO.

The deal is slated to close in the third quarter of 2026.Investors welcomed the announcement, with SpaceX shares rising 10 per cent in early trading.

If gains hold, the company could add roughly $247 billion to its market capitalisation and potentially overtake Amazon to become the world’s fifth-largest company by market value.Industry observers noted that SpaceX’s elevated valuation makes stock-financed acquisitions particularly attractive.

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said in a post on X that the company’s market value significantly reduces the dilution impact of a deal of this size.$10 bn termination fee on deal failFounded in 2022, San Francisco-based Anysphere has grown rapidly, generating approximately $2.6 billion in annualised enterprise revenue, according to company data cited by Reuters.

The startup is backed by major investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, Nvidia and Google, and had reportedly been exploring a funding round that would have valued it at around $50 billion.According to regulatory filings cited by Reuters, SpaceX would pay a $10 billion termination fee under certain circumstances if the deal falls through.

The fee would be reduced to $4 billion if regulatory or antitrust issues prevent completion of the transaction.The acquisition also raises questions about SpaceX’s data-centre strategy.

In recent weeks, the company signed major cloud-computing agreements with Anthropic and Google, leasing AI infrastructure worth an estimated $26 billion annually.

Both contracts include 90-day termination clauses.“If usage of Grok and Cursor picks up enough, it can go back to using their capacity internally, but it appears that they will provide capacity to Anthropic and Google for the foreseeable future,” DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria.