Cursor and SpaceX: Will OpenAI and Anthropic Keep Models?

SpaceX agreed last month to acquire the AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion, a deal that puts one of the most popular developer tools under the control of an AI competitor and raises a central question: will OpenAI, Anthropic, and other labs keep selling models through Cursor once the deal closes later this year? Cursor hopes to remain a platform serving third-party models alongside its own, according to people close to the company.

What will change after the acquisition?

SpaceX will acquire Cursor’s assets, customer contracts, and intellectual property, and the agreement is still subject to "requisite regulatory approvals" listed in SpaceX’s SEC filings. That means the deal gives Musk’s company control of Cursor’s product and commercial relationships, while the acquisition has not yet closed and operations remain in flux.

After the deal, Cursor says it plans to continue offering models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others alongside its own, though SpaceX and Cursor have said little publicly about post-acquisition operations. Cursor has already announced at its Compile conference that it is partnering with SpaceX to train a next model that will use "ten to twenty times more computing power" than it previously had, and CEO Michael Truell said the new model is being trained to be "intelligent beyond coding." Those statements indicate Cursor is preparing to compete with the labs while keeping platform options open.

How have OpenAI and Anthropic behaved with partner platforms before?

Third-party models have been central to Cursor’s business: the startup historically let users pick from offerings from Anthropic, OpenAI, and other labs to power its assistant. But labs have sometimes restricted distribution when interests clash, and those tensions have precedent. Last year Anthropic quickly cut off access to the startup Windsurf after news surfaced that OpenAI was acquiring the company, a move Anthropic cofounder Jared Kaplan summarized as odd to sell Claude to OpenAI.

The same dynamics could play out with Cursor because OpenAI and Anthropic now compete with Cursor on code-focused products like Codex and Claude Code. Still, commercial incentives complicate a pure exclusion scenario. Anthropic recently struck a multi-billion dollar deal to buy computing resources from SpaceX, which could encourage continued cooperation. OpenAI also has historical ties to Cursor: OpenAI’s startup fund invested in Cursor’s seed and Series A rounds and stands to receive SpaceX stock as a result of the acquisition, according to people close to Cursor.

Why it matters

Model access through platforms like Cursor shapes which tooling companies and enterprises use: many Fortune 500 customers prize "model independence," the ability to switch providers for cost or performance reasons, a point made by Eno Reyes, cofounder and CTO of competing startup Factory, who said, "I don't know if the decision is as black and white." If leading labs withdraw their models from Cursor, large corporate buyers could lose a neutral way to compare or mix models. Conversely, if Cursor remains model agnostic while leveraging SpaceX compute to train stronger in-house models, it could shift market dynamics by combining platform reach with vertically owned model capacity.

Commercial pressures also matter. OpenAI and Anthropic have been aggressive on pricing: Wired previously reported that their $200 monthly developer subscription plans can provide coders with well over $1000 of model usage, undercutting smaller independents. Cursor’s new access to far greater compute may allow it to respond with competitive pricing or new enterprise deals under SpaceX ownership.

What to watch

Look for two concrete signals: whether OpenAI and Anthropic continue to list or sell access to their models through Cursor once the acquisition closes, and whether Cursor’s next model — trained with "ten to twenty times more computing power" — ships with capabilities that directly compete with Codex and Claude Code. The acquisition remains subject to regulatory approval and the timing of model availability from third parties will determine whether Cursor remains a neutral platform or becomes SpaceX’s enterprise AI arm.