SpaceX Invests $60 Billion to Compete with OpenAI and Anthropic

SpaceX Invests $60 Billion to Compete with OpenAI and Anthropic

SpaceX is acquiring the AI coding startup Anysphere—the company behind the programming assistant Cursor—for $60 billion. Anysphere's investors will receive shares of SpaceX in return.

The deal aims to help SpaceX's AI division, xAI, catch up with OpenAI and Anthropic in the field of AI-assisted coding, one of the few commercially viable areas of generative AI.

Cursor benefits from access to SpaceX's vast chip inventory, while xAI acquires the necessary talent after losing dozens of engineers and data training staff.

Barely two days after its stock market debut, SpaceX is acquiring the AI coding startup Anysphere. This deal is expected to assist the struggling xAI division in catching up with Anthropic and OpenAI.

SpaceX has officially finalized its $60 billion acquisition of Anysphere, according to Reuters and Bloomberg. Anysphere's investors will receive shares of SpaceX in return. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026.

Technically, SpaceX had 30 days after its public listing to decide on the acquisition. However, the company acted quickly, right after last week's listing on Nasdaq, which valued SpaceX at over $2 trillion, making it one of the most valuable companies in the world. Shares rose by eight percent on Tuesday, bringing the market capitalization to nearly $2.7 trillion, Bloomberg reports.

xAI Enters the Coding Race

For xAI, which merged with SpaceX in February, this deal is primarily an admission: in the field of AI-assisted coding, one of the few commercially viable sectors of generative AI so far, Musk's company is lagging behind Anthropic and OpenAI. Bloomberg reports that Cursor employees had already been working in xAI's offices for weeks on a joint model. SpaceX confirmed on X that it is training a new AI model with Cursor.

Cursor is one of the fastest-growing software startups. More than 3,000 clients each pay at least $100,000 per year for the software, according to Bloomberg. Annualized revenues reached $3 billion by the end of April, up from $2 billion in February. Cursor has primarily relied on models from OpenAI and Anthropic but is working on its own models. The increasing competition from these same model providers likely made the sale to a deep-pocketed owner more attractive.

Calculating for Talent, Talent for Calculation

The acquisition gives Cursor access to SpaceX's vast chip inventory. In return, the deal is expected to help xAI in the AI talent war. The division had lost dozens of engineers and data training staff, and Musk had been forced to draw from Starlink and Tesla to fill the gaps. Anysphere also owns a recruitment company that, according to Bloomberg, helps major AI firms like OpenAI recruit talent.

Musk's bets on AI are costly. SpaceX reported a net loss of $4.94 billion in 2025 after retroactively absorbing xAI's debt. Capital expenditures doubled to $20.7 billion, with the largest portion dedicated to AI.

OpenAI recently announced its own acquisition of the cloud platform Ona to better support its AI agents. Anthropic is also gradually expanding its coding business around Claude.