Musk has struck a preemptive blow against Anthropic's IPO: how the $60 billion acquisition of Cursor has reshaped the AI market landscape
The deal that all of Silicon Valley is now talking about was executed with surgical precision. Elon Musk acquired Anysphere, the developer of the popular AI coding tool Cursor, for $60 billion, paying with SpaceX shares. This happened just days before Anthropic, one of the main competitors in the AI field, filed for an initial public offering (IPO).
Cursor as a "gold mine" for Anthropic
The crux of the intrigue is that Cursor was critically important to Anthropic. This tool was powered by the Claude model. Every engineer using Cursor to write code was, in essence, becoming a paying customer of Anthropic "under the hood." The flagship Composer feature, running on Claude Sonnet, became one of the most popular AI products among programmers. It is associated with the emergence of the term "vibe coding" — an approach where the developer describes the task in plain language, and the AI writes the code.
By estimates, Anthropic's corporate revenue soared in 2025 largely because Cursor became one of the largest external channels for using Claude. Every engineer in Silicon Valley or team from the Fortune 500 working through Cursor generated revenue for Anthropic.
The mechanics of the deal: how SpaceX "printed" $60 billion
The most notable aspect is the payment method. Not a single dollar in cash. All $60 billion were paid for with SpaceX shares. Musk used a mechanism that could be called a "stock printing press": SpaceX went public on June 12 at $135 per share, and by the following Tuesday, the shares were trading above $211. This surge allowed for "printing" $60 billion in new shares, which were immediately directed towards the pre-agreed purchase. SpaceX investors faced dilution of approximately 3.4%.
Musk went through with this deal despite Cursor's share among corporate clients declining: from 41% in June 2025 to 26% in May 2026, losing ground to GitHub Copilot and Amazon Q. Meanwhile, investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, and Nvidia valued Cursor at $50 billion, considering this price aggressive. Musk paid 20% more for a company that was, in essence, losing its leadership.
Why this is a blow to Anthropic
Analysts link this deal to Anthropic's upcoming IPO. Musk's own AI division, xAI, was experiencing serious difficulties: by the end of March 2026, all 11 co-founders had left the company, and Musk himself admitted that xAI was "built incorrectly from the start." For SpaceX to have a compelling AI story before entering the public market, the simplest solution was to buy a brand that engineers already trust.
Thus, Musk not only acquired an asset for SpaceX but also struck a blow against one of Anthropic's key revenue sources, depriving them of their largest corporate sales channel for Claude. If Anthropic cannot quickly convince Wall Street that the lost revenue from Cursor can be replaced, one of the most anticipated IPOs in the AI sector this year could be at risk.
Expert opinion: This deal is a classic example of how strategic maneuvers in the AI market can reshape valuations of entire sectors. Musk didn't just buy a company — he cut off a competitor's oxygen supply at a critical moment. For Anthropic's investors, this is a signal that dependence on a single distribution channel can be fatal. The market will now be closely watching how Anthropic diversifies its client base.