SpaceX has been on an acquisition spree, and the rumor mill is working overtime.
Bloomberg reported Wednesday that SpaceX attempted to acquire Cognition, a startup whose software helps developers write code. The report, which cited unnamed sources, said the deal talks have since ended.
Cognition's CEO Scott Wu pushed back on the report shortly after it came out. In a post on X, he wrote that the report was false and that Cognition "is not for sale."
The timing is curious. Just days earlier, SpaceX closed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor, a separate AI coding company. That deal alone tells you where Elon Musk is steering the company.
Musk has been clear about his ambitions. Last week, he told SpaceX employees that AI would make up about 99% of the company's value in roughly "four or five years."
That is a stunning prediction. But it fits the pattern. SpaceX went public in June, reaching a peak market value of $2.3 trillion. The company has also announced plans to build data centers in space, which would be a massive new business on its own.
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SpaceX already owns xAI, Musk's AI company, which it acquired earlier this year. And together with Cursor, it released Grok 4.6, an AI model built specifically for coding and agentic tasks, meaning tasks where the AI works on its own with minimal human guidance.
This isn't just a series of isolated moves. The acquisition of Cursor, the ownership of xAI, and the planned space data centers all point to a single strategy: controlling every layer of the AI stack - from model development to computing infrastructure to the tools that developers use. Musk is positioning SpaceX to be the backbone of the AI economy, not just a rocket company.
AI coding is widely seen as one of the most promising ways to actually make money from AI. Companies will pay for tools that help their developers write software faster, and the market is already crowded with players.
Cognition is one of them. Its enterprise clients include Mercedes-Benz, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs. That is a serious customer list.
Even though the acquisition talks reportedly fell apart, the two companies may still work together. Bloomberg says they are discussing collaboration, including the possibility of Cognition using SpaceX's computing capacity.
That would make sense. AI models need enormous computing power, and SpaceX is building infrastructure to provide it.
Cognition is also doing fine on its own. The startup raised $1 billion at a $25 billion valuation in late May. Bloomberg now reports that Cognition is in talks to raise another round at a $40 billion valuation. That would be a massive jump in just a few months.
The company also acquired Windsurf, a code-generation startup, after Windsurf's founder and several researchers were poached by OpenAI. So Cognition is actively building, not sitting still.
The pattern across all of these deals is consistent. SpaceX bought Cursor to gain an established coding tool, owns xAI for model development, and has announced data centers in space. Each piece feeds the others: the AI models need computing power, the computing power needs data centers, and the coding tools give developers a reason to use that infrastructure.
The bottom line: The denial is notable, but it does not change the bigger picture. Musk sees AI as the future of SpaceX, and he is putting serious money behind that vision. Whether Cognition ends up part of SpaceX or not, the market for AI coding tools is only getting more competitive.
For investors, the story is less about one acquisition rumor and more about where the money is flowing. AI spending is driving valuations across the board, and companies like Cognition are riding that wave. Keep an eye on who builds the tools that actually make AI useful, because that is where the durable value tends to show up.
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