Musk's Strategic Strike: How the $60 Billion Cursor Acquisition in SpaceX Shares Hit Anthropic's IPO
Elon Musk pulled off one of the most extraordinary deals of the year, acquiring Anysphere — the developer of the popular AI tool for programmers, Cursor — for $60 billion. The key detail that stirred the market: the deal was paid for exclusively with SpaceX shares, without a single dollar in cash. Even more intriguing is the timing: the acquisition was completed literally just days before Anthropic's IPO, depriving the latter of one of its largest corporate monetization channels.
Cursor, built on Anthropic's Claude model, effectively became a "payment gateway" for that company. Every engineer using Cursor to write code was, in essence, a hidden paying customer of Anthropic. The flagship Composer feature, based on Claude Sonnet, spawned an entire phenomenon — "vibe coding," where a programmer describes a task in words and the AI writes the code. This tool became a favorite of Silicon Valley and engineering teams from the Fortune 500.
How Musk "Printed" $60 Billion in a Few Days
The mechanics of the deal are striking in their sophistication. SpaceX went public on June 12 at a price of $135 per share, but by the following Tuesday, the stock had soared above $211. Using this short-term hype, Musk effectively "printed" $60 billion in the form of new SpaceX shares and immediately directed them toward the pre-agreed purchase of Cursor. SpaceX investors, meanwhile, faced dilution of roughly 3.4% — their stake decreased due to the issuance. The IPO itself became the printing press for this deal.
According to data from the service Ramp, 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, including Andreessen Horowitz and Nvidia, valued Cursor at $50 billion, considering this price aggressive. Musk paid 20% more — for a company that, in the opinion of many analysts, "is losing ground in the race."
Why This Hits Anthropic
The logic of what's happening forms a coherent chain. SpaceX went public to obtain an expensive "currency" — its own shares. Musk used them to buy Cursor, which, while losing its lead, remained the largest corporate channel through which companies paid for Claude. The deal came precisely in the gap between Anthropic's IPO filing and the setting of the offering price.
It's important to understand: interpreting this as a planned attack on Anthropic's IPO is an analytical assessment, not an established fact. However, the timing and scale themselves seem too "coincidental" to be a coincidence. If Anthropic cannot quickly 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.
Expert opinion: This deal is a brilliant example of how, in the AI era, competition shifts to the realm of control over distribution. Musk didn't just buy technology; he cut off the oxygen supply to xAI's key competitor, depriving it of its most massive channel for attracting corporate clients. For Anthropic, losing Cursor is not just a financial hole, but a strategic blow to investor confidence ahead of the IPO.