Musk's $60 Billion Deal: How the Acquisition of Cursor Undermines Anthropic's IPO
Elon Musk executed one of the most high-profile and strategically calculated deals of the year, acquiring Anysphere — the developer of the popular AI coding tool Cursor — for $60 billion. The payment was made in SpaceX shares, and the entire transaction was completed just days before the anticipated Anthropic IPO. This event instantly reshaped the balance of power in the AI coding market and dealt a blow to one of Anthropic's key revenue sources.
The reason is that Cursor was built on Anthropic's Claude model. Every engineer using this platform was effectively a paying customer of Anthropic "under the hood." The tool became so popular that its flagship feature, Composer, powered by Claude Sonnet, even coined the term "vibe coding" — an approach where a developer describes a task in plain language, and the AI writes the code. A significant portion of Silicon Valley and engineering teams from the Fortune 500 actively used Cursor.
The connection was also deep financially. Anthropic's corporate revenue surged in 2025, and a substantial part of this growth was driven precisely by Cursor. Every user of the platform was essentially paying for access to Claude. Now, this revenue generation channel has been cut off.
How Musk "Printed" $60 Billion in a Few Days
The most notable aspect of this deal is the payment mechanism. Not a single dollar in cash was spent. All $60 billion was paid in SpaceX shares, which went public on June 12 at $135 per share. By Tuesday, they were trading above $211. Musk used a few days of stock market frenzy to "print" fresh capital in the form of shares and immediately directed it toward a pre-agreed purchase. SpaceX investors faced a dilution of approximately 3.4% — their stake decreased due to the issuance of new shares. The IPO itself became the printing press for this acquisition.
Why This Is Linked to the Anthropic IPO
According to data from 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 Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, and Nvidia were preparing to invest in Cursor at a $50 billion valuation, already considered aggressive. Musk paid 20% more — for a company that, according to analysts, was losing its position in the race.
However, Musk's key motive likely runs deeper. 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 narrative before going public, the easiest path was to buy a brand that engineers already trust.
From this, the entire chain emerges. First, SpaceX goes public to obtain "currency" — expensive shares. Then Musk uses them to buy Cursor, which was losing its leadership position, and at a premium. Moreover, Cursor was the largest corporate channel through which companies paid for Claude. And the deal came precisely in the window between Anthropic filing for its IPO and setting the offering price.
It's important to understand: interpreting all of this as a planned attack on the Anthropic IPO is an 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, one of the most anticipated AI IPOs this year could be at risk.
Analyst's opinion: This case is a classic example of vertical integration in the AI era. Musk didn't just buy a business; he cut off a competitor's (Anthropic's) oxygen supply days before its IPO, while simultaneously solving his own AI division's problem. For the market, this is a signal: in the coming years, we will see even more aggressive M&A deals where the key asset is not the technology, but the user base and distribution channels.