--- title: Another win for China & Open Weight models | daily.dev description: OpenAI announced it will cut off access to its models within Cursor starting November 12th, citing concerns that SpaceX (which is acquiring Cursor) could... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/another-win-for-china-open-weight-models-zzjot8ncv twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Another win for China & Open Weight models | daily.dev og:description: OpenAI announced it will cut off access to its models within Cursor starting November 12th, citing concerns that SpaceX (which is acquiring Cursor) could... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/another-win-for-china-open-weight-models-zzjot8ncv og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/zzjOt8nCV.png og:image:alt: Another win for China & Open Weight models og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Another win for China & Open Weight models **[NeetCode](https://daily.dev/sources/neetcode)** · 15 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary OpenAI announced it will cut off access to its models within Cursor starting November 12th, citing concerns that SpaceX (which is acquiring Cursor) could distill OpenAI outputs for xAI's models, referencing Elon Musk's history of contract violations. The piece argues this move, alongside similar past actions by Anthropic (cutting off Windsurf and OpenAI), reflects strategic self-interest tied to compute alliances and upcoming IPOs rather than principle. It frames these access cutoffs as accelerating a shift toward open-weight models, increasingly dominated by Chinese labs, with Chinese model usage share among token traffic approaching 50% based on OpenRouter data from two months prior. A dispute between Cursor's CEO and OpenAI's Tibo over whether OpenAI models represent 5% of Cursor traffic (by user count vs token usage) is also covered, alongside a sponsored segment for Code Rabbit's code review tool. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### When will OpenAI models stop working in Cursor? OpenAI models will no longer be accessible inside Cursor starting November 12th. OpenAI announced it is winding down its contract with Cursor after SpaceX's acquisition of Cursor, citing concerns that SpaceX could violate terms of service by distilling OpenAI's outputs to train xAI models, similar to past distillation admitted by Elon Musk related entities. _Developers relying on multi-model coding tools can track provider access changes like this on daily.dev._ ### Why is OpenAI blocking Cursor from using its models? OpenAI says it cannot be confident SpaceX, which is acquiring Cursor, will honor its terms of service, pointing to Elon Musk's companies' history of violating contracts and past admitted distillation of OpenAI outputs for xAI. OpenAI is reportedly also protecting its upcoming frontier model, Astra, positioned as a competitor to Anthropic's Fable, from being distilled before launch. _Anyone weighing AI provider trust and lock-in risk can follow disputes like this on daily.dev._ ### What percentage of Cursor's traffic uses OpenAI models versus other providers? Cursor's CEO stated OpenAI models serve about 5% of Cursor's user traffic, but OpenAI's Tibo disputed this figure, arguing tokens are not a reliable proxy for revenue or value since OpenAI's models are highly token-efficient while smaller or weaker models require more tokens to complete the same task, inflating their apparent traffic share. _Teams comparing model efficiency and cost across providers can follow these debates on daily.dev._ --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#openai](https://daily.dev/tags/openai), [#anthropic](https://daily.dev/tags/anthropic) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/another-win-for-china-open-weight-models-zzjot8ncv) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Another win for China & Open Weight models","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/another-win-for-china-open-weight-models-zzjot8ncv","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/another-win-for-china-open-weight-models-zzjot8ncv"},"datePublished":"2026-09-01T19:14:38.342Z","dateModified":"2026-09-01T19:52:26.327Z","description":"OpenAI announced it will cut off access to its models within Cursor starting November 12th, citing concerns that SpaceX (which is acquiring Cursor) could...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LcfGpuPatSU/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LcfGpuPatSU/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"NeetCode","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"NeetCode","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--xfR6ZV0s--/f_auto/v1729363595/logos/neetcode","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/neetcode"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/another-win-for-china-open-weight-models-zzjot8ncv","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"open-source,openai,anthropic","timeRequired":"PT15M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"Another win for China & Open Weight models","description":"OpenAI announced it will cut off access to its models within Cursor starting November 12th, citing concerns that SpaceX (which is acquiring Cursor) could...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LcfGpuPatSU/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-09-01T19:14:38.342Z","duration":"PT15M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/zzjOt8nCV","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/LcfGpuPatSU"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"NeetCode","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/neetcode"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Another win for China & Open Weight models"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/another-win-for-china-open-weight-models-zzjot8ncv#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"When will OpenAI models stop working in Cursor?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"OpenAI models will no longer be accessible inside Cursor starting November 12th. 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