Musk's Secret Move: How the $60 Billion Cursor Acquisition Hit Anthropic's IPO
Elon Musk has made perhaps one of the most elegant and strategic deals of the year. Just days before Anthropic's IPO, he acquired Anysphere — the developer of the popular AI code-writing tool Cursor. The price tag: $60 billion, paid in SpaceX shares.
At first glance, this is just another major acquisition in the tech world. But digging deeper, it becomes clear: Musk delivered a preemptive strike against one of Anthropic's key revenue sources. The thing is, Cursor wasn't just a tool for programmers. It ran on Anthropic's Claude model. Every engineer using Cursor was, in essence, a paying customer of Anthropic "under the hood." This tool became so popular that its flagship feature, Composer, spawned the term "vibe coding" — an approach where a developer describes a task in words, and the AI writes the code.
Anthropic's corporate revenue in 2025 skyrocketed largely thanks to Cursor. This service became one of the largest external channels for using Claude across the entire internet. And now, that channel is cut off. Musk didn't just buy technology — he bought the audience and cash flow that directly fueled his competitor.
The Deal Mechanics: IPO as a Money Printer
The most interesting part is how the payment was made. Not a single dollar in cash. All $60 billion was paid in SpaceX shares. First, SpaceX went public on June 12 at $135 per share. By the following Tuesday, shares were already trading above $211. Musk used this market rally to "print" $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 roughly 3.4% — their stake in the company decreased due to the issuance of new shares. The IPO itself became the money printer for this acquisition.
It's important to understand: Cursor had already begun losing ground. According to data from Ramp, its share among corporate clients dropped from 41% in June 2025 to 26% in May 2026, falling behind GitHub Copilot and Amazon Q. Investors from Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, and Nvidia valued Cursor at $50 billion, considering that price aggressive. Musk paid 20% more — for a company that, in many opinions, is losing its leadership in the race.
xAI's Problems and the Blow to Anthropic
Why would Musk take such a risky step? The answer lies in the problems of his own AI division, xAI. 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 — Cursor.
But the main blow was dealt to Anthropic. The purchase of Cursor occurred precisely in the window between Anthropic filing for its IPO and setting the offering price. Now, Wall Street faces a question: can Anthropic quickly convince investors that the lost revenue from Cursor can be replaced?
Expert opinion: This deal is a masterclass in competitive intelligence and financial engineering. Musk didn't just buy an asset — he bled a competitor dry right before the most important moment in its history. For Anthropic, losing Cursor isn't just losing a client; it's losing an entire revenue generation channel that was key to their financial model. If the company doesn't present a convincing plan to replace this income, one of the most anticipated AI IPOs of the year could be under serious threat. The market is already pricing in this uncertainty into Anthropic's valuation.