Deal of the Century: Musk Snatched Cursor from Anthropic for $60 Billion in SpaceX Stock — Strategy Breakdown
In the world of high technology and artificial intelligence, an event has occurred that fundamentally reshapes the balance of power ahead of one of the most anticipated IPOs of the year. Elon Musk acquired Anysphere, the developer of the popular AI coding tool Cursor, for $60 billion. The payment was made not with cash, but with SpaceX shares. This deal, closed just days before Anthropic's stock market debut, deals a serious blow to one of the latter's key revenue sources.
Why Cursor Was Critically Important for Anthropic
Cursor is not just another AI coding assistant. It is a platform that has become synonymous with "vibe coding" — an approach where a programmer describes a task in plain language, and the neural network writes the code. Its flagship feature, Composer, powered by Anthropic's Claude model, has become one of the most beloved products among Silicon Valley engineers and Fortune 500 teams.
The connection between Cursor and Anthropic was not only technological but also financial. Every engineer writing code through Cursor was, in essence, a paying customer of Anthropic "under the hood." Cursor became one of the largest external channels for Claude usage across the entire internet. Anthropic's corporate revenue surged in 2025 largely due to this partnership.
The Mechanics of the Deal: How Musk "Printed" $60 Billion
The most remarkable aspect of this deal is the payment method. Not a single dollar in cash changed hands. All $60 billion was paid in SpaceX shares. The mechanics were as follows: SpaceX went public on June 12 at a price of $135 per share, and by Tuesday, shares were trading above $211. Using a few days of stock market frenzy, Musk effectively "printed" $60 billion in fresh capital in the form of shares and immediately spent them on a pre-agreed purchase. SpaceX investors faced dilution of approximately 3.4%.
This is a brilliant, albeit aggressive, financial maneuver. The IPO itself became the printing press for this acquisition.
A Blow to Anthropic's IPO
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, were preparing to invest in Cursor at a valuation of $50 billion, considering it aggressive. Musk, however, paid 20% more — for a company that, according to analysts, is losing ground in the race.
Why does Musk need this? 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 its public market debut, the simplest path was to buy a brand that engineers already trust.
My expert analysis: This deal is not just a technology acquisition. It is a strategic strike delivered at the most vulnerable moment. Poaching the largest corporate monetization channel for Claude right before Anthropic's IPO looks like a planned attack. 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 be under serious threat. The market will be closely watching how Anthropic extricates itself from this trap.