SpaceX is holding a card that could reshape the AI coding space. New filings show Elon Musk's rocket company has the option to buy Cursor, one of the fastest-growing AI coding tools, for $60 billion later this year.
If SpaceX walks away from the buyout, it still owes Cursor $10 billion for the work the two companies are already doing together. That $10 billion check is one of the largest pre-paid commercial agreements in tech history.
Cursor is the AI coding tool developers use to write software faster, and its valuation has jumped from a few billion to over $50 billion in under a year. Investors are pouring another $2 billion into the company at that higher mark, showing how quickly money is flowing into AI software tools.
SpaceX runs Starlink, builds rockets, and writes a huge amount of code for both. Musk's AI company xAI already merged with SpaceX, pushing the combined business to a $1.25 trillion valuation.
The pitch: owning Cursor would give Musk control over both the rockets and the AI writing the software that runs on them. For a company worth more than a trillion dollars, the $60 billion price tag is big but not crazy.
Musk is also tied up in a separate trial with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, which makes this deal more pointed. Pulling Cursor inside a Musk-controlled empire would hand him one of the most popular AI coding products just as the OpenAI fight plays out in court.
Cursor has been passed over in talks from Google and OpenAI before, which makes the SpaceX arrangement the most concrete offer the startup has fielded. It also gives Cursor a well-funded backstop while it keeps raising private money.
The $10 billion figure is what SpaceX owes Cursor for ongoing joint development work, which ties the two companies together even if the buyout never happens. That kind of structure is rare outside of defense contracting and makes the relationship hard to unwind.
It also effectively gives SpaceX a seat at the table on Cursor's product roadmap. Competing AI coding tools from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic now face a well-resourced backer behind one of their fastest-growing rivals.
Watch whether SpaceX actually pulls the trigger before year-end, since the option has a window attached. Also watch what happens to Cursor's $50 billion-plus funding round, because a pending buyout tends to scare off new investors once they understand the exit path.
The broader takeaway for investors is simple: AI coding tools now trade at higher prices than most public software companies, with the biggest deals happening before most people have even tried the product. If SpaceX exercises the option, expect every major AI lab to respond with its own coding acquisition.
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