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 elegant and aggressive deals of the year: he acquired Anysphere, the developer of the popular AI coding tool Cursor, for $60 billion. But the most interesting part is that the entire amount was paid for with SpaceX shares, without a single dollar in cash. The deal was closed literally just days before Anthropic, Musk's direct competitor in the AI field, filed for an initial public offering (IPO).
Why Cursor Was Critically Important to Anthropic
Cursor, powered by Anthropic's Claude model, became a true phenomenon in Silicon Valley. Thanks to its flagship feature, Composer, based on Claude Sonnet, Cursor turned into one of Anthropic's main monetization channels. Essentially, every engineer using Cursor became a paying Anthropic customer "under the hood." This connection is credited with the emergence of the term "vibe coding" — where a programmer describes a task in words, and the AI writes the code. Anthropic's corporate revenue surged in 2025 largely due to this hidden sales channel.
The Deal Mechanics: How Musk "Printed" $60 Billion
The key point is the form of payment. Musk used SpaceX shares, which went public on June 12 at $135 each, and by the following Tuesday were trading above $211. He capitalized on the stock market frenzy to "print" $60 billion in the form of new shares and immediately directed them toward the pre-agreed purchase of Cursor. SpaceX investors faced dilution of roughly 3.4% — their stake decreased due to the issuance of new shares. The IPO itself became the printing press for this acquisition.
Notably, 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 and Nvidia valued Cursor at $50 billion, considering that price already aggressive. Musk paid 20% more for a company that, according to analysts, is losing its leadership in the race.
A Direct Threat to Anthropic's IPO
The connection to Anthropic is obvious. Cursor was one of the largest external channels for using Claude. Losing this client deals a direct blow to Anthropic's revenues ahead of its stock market debut. If the company 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 at risk.
Expert Opinion: This is a brilliant, albeit cynical, move by Musk. He didn't just buy an asset — he dealt a strategic blow to a competitor at its most vulnerable moment. xAI's problems, including the departure of all 11 co-founders and Musk's own admission that the company was "built incorrectly from the start," make this deal not just an acquisition, but an attempt to salvage his own AI story at someone else's expense. For Anthropic, this is a wake-up call: dependence on a single sales channel turned out to be a fatal mistake.