Deal of the Century: Musk Bought Cursor from Anthropic for $60 Billion in SpaceX Stock — Analysis of IPO Implications
In the world of high technology and artificial intelligence, an event has occurred that radically changes 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 tool for programmers, Cursor, for $60 billion. The payment was made not in cash, but in SpaceX shares — and this is the key point of the entire story.
Cursor: Not Just a Tool, but Anthropic's Main Channel
Cursor was not just another startup. It was the largest external monetization channel for Anthropic's Claude models. Every engineer using Cursor to write code was, in essence, a paying customer of Anthropic "under the hood." The flagship Composer feature, powered by Claude Sonnet, became the de facto standard for "vibe coding" — an approach where a programmer describes a task in words, and the AI writes the code. This term, by the way, was introduced into common usage in early 2025 by a researcher who was experimenting specifically with Composer.
The dependency was deep and financial. Anthropic's corporate revenue skyrocketed in 2025 largely because a significant portion of Silicon Valley and engineering teams from the Fortune 500 were paying for Claude through Cursor. The loss of this client is a severe blow to Anthropic's revenue.
The Mechanics of the Deal: The SpaceX "Printing Press"
The most interesting part is exactly how Musk pulled off this operation. Not a single dollar in cash changed hands. The entire $60 billion was paid for with SpaceX shares. First, SpaceX went public on June 12 at a price of $135 per share. By Tuesday, shares were trading above $211. Using this frenzy, Musk literally "printed" $60 billion in the form of new shares and instantly spent them on the pre-agreed purchase of Cursor. SpaceX investors, meanwhile, faced dilution of approximately 3.4%.
The very fact of the SpaceX IPO became the printing press for this purchase. This is an unprecedented financial operation in terms of speed and mechanics.
Why This Hurts Anthropic
Data from the service Ramp shows that 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 like Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, and Nvidia valued Cursor at $50 billion, considering this valuation already aggressive. Musk paid 20% more — for a company that is, in essence, losing its leadership in the race.
Why did he do it? xAI's problems are obvious: 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 convincing AI story before going public, the easiest path was to buy a brand that engineers already trust.
Expert Conclusion: The deal was struck precisely in the window between Anthropic filing for its IPO and setting the offering price. Now Anthropic faces a critical task: convincing Wall Street that the lost revenue from Cursor can be replaced. If the company fails, one of the most anticipated AI IPOs of the year could be under serious threat. Personally, I believe this is a planned attack on Anthropic's valuation, and the market is already starting to price this in.