Deal of the Century: Musk Snatched Cursor from Anthropic for $60 Billion in SpaceX Stock — Strategy Breakdown
Elon Musk pulled off one of the boldest deals of the year: his company SpaceX acquired Anysphere, the developer of the popular AI tool for programmers, Cursor, for $60 billion. However, the key detail is that not a single dollar was paid in cash. The entire amount was paid in SpaceX shares, issued specifically for this purpose. The deal was closed literally just days before Anthropic's IPO, and this is no coincidence.
Why Cursor Was Critically Important for Anthropic
Cursor ran on Anthropic's Claude model. In essence, every engineer using Cursor automatically became a paying customer of Anthropic "under the hood." This tool became one of the largest external monetization channels for Claude, especially after the flagship Composer feature, based on Claude Sonnet, spawned the term "vibe coding" — an approach where a developer describes a task in words, and the AI writes the code. Cursor was used by Silicon Valley engineers and teams from the Fortune 500 list.
According to available data, Anthropic's corporate revenue surged in 2025 precisely due to the flow from Cursor. Every new user of this tool was a direct source of revenue for Anthropic. Thus, Musk didn't just buy a successful startup — he cut off one of the main oxygen lines for his competitor on the eve of its stock market debut.
The Mechanics of the Deal: How SpaceX Shares Became "Currency"
The most interesting part is the financial engineering. The deal was conducted through a regulatory Form 8-K. Musk exercised an option signed back in April and waited for SpaceX to go public on June 12. The company's shares opened at $135 but were already trading above $211 by Tuesday. Using this short-term stock market frenzy, Musk essentially "printed" $60 billion in the form of new SpaceX shares and immediately directed them to purchase Cursor. SpaceX investors, meanwhile, faced dilution of approximately 3.4% — their stake decreased, but the company gained a strategic asset.
Connection to Anthropic's IPO and xAI's Problems
In my assessment, this deal is a direct blow to Anthropic's valuation ahead of its IPO. According to data from the service Ramp, Cursor's share among corporate clients of AI tools was declining from 41% in June 2025 to 26% in May 2026, losing ground to GitHub Copilot and Amazon Q. Meanwhile, investors from Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, and Nvidia valued Cursor at $50 billion, considering that valuation already aggressive. Musk paid 20% more for a company that, in the opinion of many, is losing ground in the race.
Moreover, Musk's own AI division — xAI — is 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." The purchase of Cursor is not just a capture of Anthropic's customer base, but also an urgent attempt to give SpaceX a compelling AI story before entering the public market, by buying a brand that engineers already trust.
Now the entire chain falls into a logical picture: SpaceX goes public, obtains expensive "currency" in the form of its shares, spends them on buying Cursor, which is the largest corporate sales channel for Anthropic. And all of this happens in the interval between Anthropic filing its IPO application and setting the offering price.
My expert conclusion: This is not just a business deal, but a classic example of a strategic maneuver in the style of "chess." Musk delivered a preemptive strike on Anthropic's valuation, depriving it of one of its key revenue drivers. If Anthropic cannot quickly convince Wall Street that it can compensate for the lost revenue from Cursor, one of the most anticipated IPOs in the AI sector this year could be under serious threat. The market will be closely watching how the company presents its new growth story.