OpenAI walks away from $1 billion Cursor partnership after SpaceX acquisition

OpenAI just torched a partnership it estimated would generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue. The reason: Elon Musk’s SpaceX bought the company on the other end of the deal. On August 28, OpenAI announced it would terminate its contract with Cursor, the AI-powered coding tool that has become one of the fastest-growing developer platforms in tech. The wind-down takes effect November 12, giving Cursor roughly ten weeks to fully decouple from OpenAI’s models. A $60 billion deal triggered the breakup SpaceX finalized its acquisition of Anysphere, Cursor’s parent company, in August through a $60 billion all-stock deal. The agreement had been reached back in June. That acquisition triggered a change-of-control clause in Cursor’s contract with OpenAI, giving Sam Altman’s company the legal grounds to walk away. And walk away it did, despite the money involved. OpenAI recently estimated the Cursor partnership would bring in over $1 billion a year in revenue, according to WIRED. OpenAI cited trust issues stemming from past contract violations involving Musk’s other companies, specifically X (formerly Twitter) and xAI. Cursor’s response: we’ll be fine Cursor CEO Michael Truell struck ...