Deal of the Century: Musk Acquires Cursor for $60 Billion in SpaceX Stock, Striking a Blow Against Anthropic Ahead of IPO
The artificial intelligence market is experiencing a tectonic shift: Elon Musk has acquired Anysphere, the developer of the popular AI coding tool Cursor, for $60 billion. The payment was made not in cash, but in SpaceX shares. The deal was closed just days before the anticipated initial public offering (IPO) of Anthropic, and in my firm belief, this is no coincidence, but part of a carefully planned multi-step strategy.
Cursor: A "Gold Mine" for Claude
The key point many are missing: Cursor was not just another startup. It was the largest external monetization channel for Anthropic's Claude model. Every engineer using Cursor was, in essence, a paying customer of Anthropic "under the hood." It was thanks to Claude, and particularly its Composer feature, that Cursor became one of the most beloved AI products in Silicon Valley, even spawning the term "vibe coding" — where a developer describes a task in words, and the AI writes the code.
Anthropic's corporate revenue in 2025 skyrocketed largely due to this connection. Every Cursor user represents direct revenue for Anthropic. And now Musk is cutting off this channel by buying the company.
The Deal Mechanics: How Musk "Printed" $60 Billion
The payment mechanism deserves special attention. Musk didn't spend a single dollar in cash. First, SpaceX went public on June 12 at a price of $135 per share. By the following Tuesday, shares had surged above $211. Capitalizing on this stock market frenzy, Musk issued new SpaceX shares, diluting existing investors' stakes by approximately 3.4%, and immediately exchanged them for Cursor.
This is a brilliant, albeit aggressive, move. The SpaceX IPO essentially became a "printing press" for this acquisition. Notably, investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, and Nvidia valued Cursor at $50 billion, considering that price aggressive. Musk paid 20% more — $60 billion — for a company that, by some accounts, is beginning to lose ground in the AI coding assistant race, falling behind GitHub Copilot and Amazon Q.
The Connection to Anthropic's IPO: A Strategic Blow
This is where the true intent becomes clear. Musk's own AI division, xAI, is facing 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 an established brand trusted by engineers.
But the side effect of this deal is a devastating blow to Anthropic. Losing its largest corporate sales channel for Claude, Anthropic forfeits a significant and, more importantly, demonstrable source of revenue. And this happens precisely at the moment the company is filing for an IPO and trying to set its offering price.
My Analysis: What's Next?
I view this deal as one of the most elegant and audacious in the history of modern tech business. Musk didn't just buy an asset — he launched a preemptive strike against a competitor on the eve of its most important event. A critical moment now arrives for Anthropic. If the company cannot convince Wall Street that the lost revenue from Cursor can be replaced, one of the most anticipated AI IPOs of the year could face serious jeopardy. The market will be closely watching how Anthropic presents its new monetization strategy. Personally, I believe this move by Musk fundamentally reshapes the balance of power in the AI market, and we will see the consequences in the coming months.