Deal of the Century: How Musk Intercepted Anthropic's Key Client with $60 Billion in SpaceX Stock Right Before the IPO
Elon Musk has pulled off perhaps one of the most audacious maneuvers in the history of tech business. He acquired Anysphere — the developer of the popular AI tool for programmers, Cursor — for $60 billion, paying with SpaceX shares. The deal was closed literally just days before Anthropic's IPO, and the blow struck at the very heart of one of this AI giant's main revenue sources.
Cursor was not just another application. It ran on Anthropic's Claude model. Every engineer using Cursor to write code was, in essence, a paying customer of Anthropic "under the hood." The tool became one of the largest external monetization channels for Claude, covering a significant portion of Silicon Valley and engineering teams from the Fortune 500 list. Its flagship feature, Composer, built on Claude Sonnet, spawned an entire term — "vibe coding" — where a programmer describes a task in words, and the AI writes the code.
The Mechanics of the Deal: SpaceX's Printing Press
The most interesting part is exactly how the payment was made. Not a single dollar in cash: all $60 billion was paid in SpaceX shares. Musk used the SpaceX IPO, which took place on June 12 at a price of $135 per share. By the following Tuesday, shares were trading above $211. Thus, in just a few days of stock market frenzy, Musk "printed" $60 billion in fresh capital in the form of shares and immediately spent them on a pre-agreed purchase. SpaceX investors, meanwhile, faced dilution of approximately 3.4% due to the issuance of new shares. The IPO became the printing press for this acquisition.
Blow to Anthropic: Loss of a Key Channel
Why is this linked to Anthropic's IPO? According to data from the service Ramp, Cursor's share among corporate clients declined from 41% in June 2025 to 26% in May 2026, losing ground to GitHub Copilot and Amazon Q. Investors, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Nvidia, valued Cursor at $50 billion, considering this price aggressive. Musk paid 20% more for a company that, based on the numbers, is losing its lead in the race.
In my assessment, Musk went through with this deal because his own AI division, xAI, was experiencing serious difficulties. For SpaceX to have a compelling AI story before going public, the easiest path was to buy a brand that engineers already trust. The problems at xAI are confirmed: 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."
Cryptalist Expert Opinion: This deal is a masterclass in corporate strategy, but it carries enormous risks for Anthropic. If the company 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 of derailment. Investors should closely monitor how Anthropic diversifies its sales channels in the coming quarters.