When SpaceX on Tuesday officially announced its plan to purchase AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion in stock, as it had predicted it would do in April, it presented CIOs and developers with a little good news, a little bad news and a massive pile of uncertainty.
The details of the proposed acquisition were virtually identical to the terms announced in April, even retaining the $10 billion consolation prize for Cursor should SpaceX back out of the deal.
But for CIOs and developers, the increasing probability of the deal happening is forcing them to make long-term decisions without many long-term answers about what is likely to happen to Cursor, which says its coding agents are used by 64% of Fortune 500 companies.
But whether the deal is good news for Cursor’s customers, or even those of its rivals, is an open question.
Arnal Dayaratna, research VP for software development at IDC, is firmly in the good news camp. He argued that the main element holding back the company, which he estimated brings in about $2 billion in annual revenue, was access to GPUs. And, he said, SpaceX’s xAI has the ability to resolve that problem.
