--- title: SpaceX's AI coding shopping spree: Cursor, then a... description: SpaceX, just days after closing its $60bn acquisition of Cursor, reportedly approached Cognition (maker of the Devin coding agent) about a potential deal.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/spacex-s-ai-coding-shopping-spree-cursor-then-a-reported-run-at-cognition-cqgttw15k twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: SpaceX's AI coding shopping spree: Cursor, then a reported run at Cognition | daily.dev og:description: SpaceX, just days after closing its $60bn acquisition of Cursor, reportedly approached Cognition (maker of the Devin coding agent) about a potential deal.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/spacex-s-ai-coding-shopping-spree-cursor-then-a-reported-run-at-cognition-cqgttw15k og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/cqGttW15k.png og:image:alt: SpaceX's AI coding shopping spree: Cursor, then a reported run at Cognition 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. # SpaceX's AI coding shopping spree: Cursor, then a reported run at Cognition **[Collections](https://daily.dev/sources/collections)** · 4 min read · 7 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary SpaceX, just days after closing its $60bn acquisition of Cursor, reportedly approached Cognition (maker of the Devin coding agent) about a potential deal. Cognition CEO Scott Wu denied the company is for sale, but Bloomberg reports talks occurred, possibly involving Cognition using SpaceX's compute rather than a straight buyout. Cognition previously raised $1bn at a $26bn valuation, with reported early conversations floating figures north of $40bn. Musk is said to be pushing for SpaceX's AI division to out-earn its rocket business by September. The piece argues Cursor's sale makes sense because it lacked its own frontier models and GPU infrastructure, unlike Codex or Claude, leaving it squeezed on token economics - and frames SpaceX's compute as a potential lifeline. ## Content ## What happened OpenAI announced it's ending its model partnership with Cursor, the AI coding editor, following SpaceX's $60 billion acquisition of Cursor's parent company Anysphere. The cutoff date is November 12, 2026, giving developers roughly ten weeks to adjust. The stated reason is trust, or the lack of it. OpenAI says it can't be confident SpaceX will honor its terms of service, pointing to a track record with Musk-affiliated companies: Twitter/X and xAI have both been accused of contract violations, and Elon Musk admitted under oath that xAI had "partly" distilled OpenAI's models to improve Grok. With OpenAI's upcoming Astra model on the horizon, the company says it's not willing to extend access to a SpaceX-owned entity. OpenAI is invoking a change-of-control provision in its contract with Cursor. It's giving the maximum notice period allowed under that contract. ## What Cursor says Cursor CEO Michael Truell responded publicly, noting that OpenAI models account for only about 5% of Cursor's traffic. He said Cursor is in talks with OpenAI to resolve the situation and is also in discussions with Azure as a fallback. He framed Cursor's relationship with OpenAI as a long one — Cursor was among OpenAI's earliest customers. OpenAI's Tibor Blaho pushed back on the 5% figure, arguing that token count isn't a fair proxy for value or revenue, since frontier models like OpenAI's are more token-efficient than smaller alternatives. The same task that takes 100 tokens on GPT-4 might take many more on a weaker model, inflating the traffic share of those alternatives. ## What Anthropic is doing Anthropic moved quickly to signal it's staying put. Tom Brown, Anthropic's head of compute, publicly pledged to increase compute capacity to support Claude within Cursor. Cursor has been an Anthropic partner since Claude Sonnet 3.5. The optics here are complicated. Anthropic reportedly pays SpaceX around $1.25 billion a month for compute across Colossus data centers — meaning Anthropic depends on SpaceX infrastructure even as SpaceX now owns two of Anthropic's competitors (xAI and Cursor). Some observers noted that Anthropic did exactly what OpenAI is doing now when it cut off Windsurf's Claude access after acquisition rumors surfaced, making the public pledge of loyalty to Cursor feel a bit selective. ## What this means for developers For most Cursor users, the practical impact is limited. OpenAI models were a small slice of traffic, and Claude, Gemini, and Grok remain available. Cursor already ships Grok 4.5 on every plan. Developers who specifically rely on OpenAI models through Cursor have a few options: - Use a personal OpenAI API key directly within Cursor - Switch to OpenAI's own Codex IDE extension - Route through an AI gateway like Amazon Bedrock or Azure For enterprise teams, the transition is less trivial than it sounds. Switching models means revalidating workflows for debugging, refactoring, and multi-file agent tasks. Switching platforms entirely means retraining developers, rebuilding integrations, and repeating security reviews. ## The bigger picture SpaceX acquired Cursor in June and closed the deal at $60 billion. Within days of closing, SpaceX reportedly approached Cognition — maker of the Devin coding agent — about a possible acquisition. Cognition CEO Scott Wu publicly denied any talks, saying the company isn't for sale, though Bloomberg reported discussions did include a possible compute arrangement with SpaceX. The strategic logic behind SpaceX buying Cursor is fairly straightforward: Cursor couldn't compete long-term without owning its own models and GPU infrastructure. Rivals like Codex and Claude Code can subsidize aggressive pricing through favorable API economics. Cursor couldn't. SpaceX's compute capacity changes that equation. Musk dismissed OpenAI's move on X, renewing accusations about Altman and Greg Brockman. Altman hasn't responded publicly in detail. The episode has a certain symmetry to it. Frontier labs are intensely protective of their IP against distillation risks, while simultaneously asking enterprise customers to trust them with sensitive code and proprietary data. The Cursor situation makes that tension visible in both directions at once. ## Questions this post answers ### When does OpenAI stop supporting Cursor and why? OpenAI is ending its model partnership with Cursor on November 12, 2026, invoking a change-of-control clause after SpaceX's $60 billion acquisition of Anysphere, Cursor's parent company. OpenAI cites concerns about trust with SpaceX given past accusations against Musk-affiliated companies like xAI and Twitter/X, including Elon Musk's admission that xAI partly distilled OpenAI's models to improve Grok. _Teams planning AI coding tool migrations can track fast-moving vendor changes like this on daily.dev._ ### What percentage of Cursor's usage comes from OpenAI models? OpenAI models account for about 5% of Cursor's traffic, according to Cursor CEO Michael Truell. OpenAI's Tibor Blaho disputed that figure as misleading, arguing token count understates OpenAI's value since frontier models are more token-efficient, meaning the same task uses fewer tokens on GPT-4 than on weaker alternatives, inflating other models' apparent traffic share. _Developers weighing which AI models to depend on can follow this kind of vendor dispute on daily.dev._ ### What can Cursor users do if they rely on OpenAI models after access is cut off? Developers can use a personal OpenAI API key directly within Cursor, switch to OpenAI's own Codex IDE extension, or route requests through an AI gateway like Amazon Bedrock or Azure. Claude, Gemini, and Grok 4.5 remain available on every Cursor plan, so most users face limited practical impact since OpenAI was already a small slice of traffic. _Anyone rebuilding an AI coding workflow around model access changes can track the fallout on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 57 comments across x (as of 2026-09-13). **TL;DR:** The discussion is dominated by meta-commentary about a long explainer video, but the substantive thread centers on OpenAI cutting Cursor's direct model access after SpaceX's acquisition, with mixed reactions ranging from framing it as trust/distillation protection to dismissing it as a rev-share dispute dressed up as principle. **Sentiment:** 10% positive · 35% mixed · 55% skeptical **The case for** - Some see the cutoff as a reasonable trust-based move given Musk-affiliated companies' past ToS/distillation violations. - One commenter suggests this event validates the need for provider redundancy built into product architecture. **The pushback** - Several argue the 'ban' framing is overstated since BYOK, OpenRouter, and the Codex extension still provide access. - Some read the move cynically as a pricing/rev-share renegotiation disguised as a policy or trust decision. - A few predict this just pushes Cursor toward Claude/Grok, handing OpenAI's rivals a free opportunity. - Complaints that the underlying detail is trivial and didn't warrant a lengthy video. **By community** - x (mixed): Reactions split between debating the technical mechanics of what access actually changes and dismissing the whole story as overblown or cynically motivated. **Hottest debate:** Whether OpenAI's move is a genuine trust/distillation-risk decision or just a disguised pricing/rev-share dispute. **Open questions** - Will Cursor's migration to Azure/Grok/Claude fully offset the loss of direct OpenAI access by the November cutoff? - Does losing privileged distribution meaningfully hurt Cursor given OpenAI models were reportedly only ~5% of traffic? **Highlights** > @theo The detail that matters isn't the ban semantics, it's the date: Nov 12. OpenAI didn't cut Cursor off today, it gave itself a 74-day countdown while still selling API access. That's not a policy change, that's a pricing renegotiation with extra steps. > — [shivamssing25 on x](https://x.com/shivamssing25/status/2094180163991007523) > @theo OpenAI’s policy line is really a distribution boundary: first-party products can subsidize deep tool loops, while API resellers face a different cost and abuse model. The practical test is whether developers get a migration path or a hard cutoff. > — [liuzhao\_666 on x](https://x.com/liuzhao_666/status/2094178424596451565) > @theo I'd bet Cursor leans hard into Claude within the month, OpenAI just gave their biggest rival a free sales pitch. > — [ShinkaIoT on x](https://x.com/ShinkaIoT/status/2094186834482147453) > @theo doesn't this prove cursor needs provider redundancy as product architecture, not backup plumbing > — [sebuzdugan on x](https://x.com/sebuzdugan/status/2094253903403528662) > @theo Skip the video guys, it's just Elon vs Sama. It's funny how Theo milked this beef into a 27 min video. No hate. > — [wfromsea on x · 22 points](https://x.com/wfromsea/status/2094179964149178569) **Source threads** - [x](https://x.com/theo/status/2094172153956680132) · 0 points · 57 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why Cursor’s CEO believes OpenAI, Anthropic competition won’t crush his startup](https://daily.dev/posts/why-cursor-s-ceo-believes-openai-anthropic-competition-won-t-crush-his-startup-d0zdblq7g) · TechCrunch · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#business](https://daily.dev/tags/business), [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding), [#spacex](https://daily.dev/tags/spacex) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/spacex-s-ai-coding-shopping-spree-cursor-then-a-reported-run-at-cognition-cqgttw15k) ```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":"SpaceX's AI coding shopping spree: Cursor, then a reported run at Cognition","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/spacex-s-ai-coding-shopping-spree-cursor-then-a-reported-run-at-cognition-cqgttw15k","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/spacex-s-ai-coding-shopping-spree-cursor-then-a-reported-run-at-cognition-cqgttw15k"},"datePublished":"2026-08-25T14:44:32.573Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T19:50:58.391Z","description":"SpaceX, just days after closing its $60bn acquisition of Cursor, reportedly approached Cognition (maker of the Devin coding agent) about a potential deal....","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CfBuTYcE7Wk/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CfBuTYcE7Wk/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Collections","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":"Collections","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--fk_6ycEi--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780996001/logos/collections?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/spacex-s-ai-coding-shopping-spree-cursor-then-a-reported-run-at-cognition-cqgttw15k","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":7},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"business,ai-coding,spacex","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Collections","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"SpaceX's AI coding shopping spree: Cursor, then a reported run at Cognition"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/spacex-s-ai-coding-shopping-spree-cursor-then-a-reported-run-at-cognition-cqgttw15k#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"When does OpenAI stop supporting Cursor and why?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"OpenAI is ending its model partnership with Cursor on November 12, 2026, invoking a change-of-control clause after SpaceX's $60 billion acquisition of Anysphere, Cursor's parent company. 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