Musk delivers a preemptive strike against Anthropic's IPO: analysis of the $60 billion Cursor acquisition
Elon Musk executed one of the biggest deals of the year, acquiring Anysphere — the developer of the popular AI coding tool Cursor — for $60 billion. The payment was made exclusively in SpaceX shares, making this deal unique from a financial engineering perspective. However, the key aspect of this story lies far beyond a simple acquisition: a blow was struck against one of Anthropic's largest corporate clients, which is preparing for an IPO.
Why Cursor was critically important for Anthropic
Cursor operated on Anthropic's Claude model. Essentially, every engineer using the Cursor platform was a paying Anthropic client "under the hood." This tool became the main driver of so-called "vibe coding" — an approach where a developer describes a task in words, and the AI writes the code. It was Cursor and Claude that coined this term in early 2025.
Anthropic's corporate revenue surged in 2025 largely because Cursor became one of the largest external channels for using Claude. A significant portion of Silicon Valley and engineering teams from the Fortune 500 used this tool. The flagship Composer feature, built on Claude Sonnet, became one of the most beloved AI products among programmers.
The mechanics of the deal: How Musk "printed" $60 billion
The most notable aspect is how the payment was made. Not a single dollar in cash changed hands: the entire $60 billion was paid in SpaceX shares. The deal was formalized through an SEC Form 8-K, and Musk exercised an option signed back in April. SpaceX shares appeared on the stock exchange on June 12 at a price of $135 each, and by Tuesday were trading above $211. Musk used a few days of stock market frenzy to "print" $60 billion in fresh capital in the form of shares and immediately spend it on a pre-agreed purchase. SpaceX investors, meanwhile, faced dilution of approximately 3.4%.
Connection to Anthropic's IPO: A chain of events
Data from the service Ramp shows that Cursor's share among corporate clients was declining: from 41% in June 2025 to 26% in May 2026, losing ground to GitHub Copilot and Amazon Q. Investors Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, and Nvidia were preparing to invest in Cursor at a $50 billion valuation, considering it already aggressive, while Musk paid 20% more — for a company that is, in essence, losing ground in the race.
In my assessment, Musk pursued the deal because his own AI division, xAI, was experiencing serious difficulties. By the end of March 2026, all 11 of its 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 going public, the easiest path was to buy a brand that engineers already trust.
It is important to understand: interpreting all this as a planned attack on Anthropic's IPO is my personal analytical assessment, not an established fact. Sources confirm the events themselves, but not the intent to specifically harm Anthropic. Nevertheless, much now depends on Anthropic's next move. If the company cannot quickly convince Wall Street that the lost revenue from Cursor can be replaced, then one of the most anticipated AI IPOs this year could be at risk.
Expert opinion: This deal demonstrates a fundamental shift in the strategy of major players. Musk is effectively using SpaceX's public market as a printing press for acquisitions, setting a precedent for future M&A in the tech sector. For Anthropic, losing Cursor means losing not just a client, but an entire distribution channel, which could seriously impact the company's valuation ahead of its IPO. The market for AI coding tools is entering a phase of consolidation, and we will see more than one such deal.