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I'm skeptical of this deal. Cursor led the way on agentic coding, but Claude Code and Codex have replaced it. [I use Codex for everything now.] Still, I'm hear

I'm skeptical of this deal. Cursor led the way on agentic coding, but Claude Code and Codex have replaced it. [I use Codex for everything now.] Still, I'm hearing that Grok 4.6 is almost as good at coding as Codex, but lots cheaper. [My network is also down on Claude--Opus 5 seems like a regression.] The optimistic scenario would be Grok being a fast-follower with cheaper rates, and staying ahead of open source models. If they can pull that off, and convince enough developers, then maybe they've got a chance. But $60B seems insane to me. What's Cursor's market share relative to Codex and Claude Code? If it's not meaningful, then it's $60B for an acquihire.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
_menelaus 2mo ago
Its 60B for a huge amount of RL coding data to become competitive in the space.
- GMoromisato 2mo ago
  That would make more sense to me.
- mcphage 2mo ago
  > to become competitive in the space. In the rocket ship space?
  - ffsm8 2mo ago
    According to it's IPO documents, SpaceX is a 99% ai company, with a tiny offshoot doing space shipping, essentially
dgellow 2mo ago
Have you read SpaceX IPO prospectus? Their AI plans are completely nonsensical. I don’t believe there is an actual strategy here other than trying to surf on (and contribute to) the AI bubble
- kridsdale1 2mo ago
  SpaceX has a monopoly on The Universe. Therefore the TAM for selling tokens to all possible alien species is what justifies the valuation.
- GMoromisato 2mo ago
  SpaceX is betting that the world will be compute/energy constrained by 2030 and that orbital datacenters will become cost-effective for inference. If they are right about that, they will be the largest company in the solar system. If they are wrong, they will still be one of the largest telecom companies. To me this is a classic case of low-downside, very-high-upside.
  - dgellow 2mo ago
    I hope you’re not in the business of investing other people’s money
  - vrganj 2mo ago
    How do you cool a data center in a vacuum?
    - GMoromisato 2mo ago
      How is Starlink cooled? How is ISS cooled? They all use radiators, which work in a vacuum by--wait for it--radiating infrared into space. Orbital data centers do not defy the laws of physics. TBD whether they are economical relative to terrestrial data centers, but please don't succumb to misinformation.
      - dgellow 2mo ago
        They do and you’re the one spreading misinformation… the amount of energy you need to radiate for inference GPUs is enormous compared to any computer currently used in space. Energy dissipation by radiating is literally the least effective method and would require insanely large radiators just to be effective on paper. You also need to mitigate bit flips, meaning you throw away around 2/3 of your compute capacity. And that’s just the most basic things, before taking in account ALL the other problems you face doing compute in space someone with expertise in the domain could mention. Datacenters in space is a grift that won’t happen in any meaningful capacity and can be debunked by a 15y old who followed their physics courses
4lasGa 2mo ago
Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared, had the foresight to participate in a $2.5B round last year: https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/13/coding-assistant-cursor-raises-2-3b-5-months-after-its-previous-round/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/13/coding-assistant-cursor-ra... Maybe this is horse trading: SpaceX pays an insane price in stock for a vibe coding app, Trump will help Terafab and Starlink in any way possible. There are probably other Cursor investors among the Trump clan.
interactivecode 2mo ago
60B in all stock. So basically “free” assuming cursor leadership believes Elons feverdreams. I wonder how long until Elon makes everyone believe he founded Cursor.
- kelvinjps10 2mo ago
  it's going to be renamed to with the x (x agent or whatever) and then there will no mention of the original name Cursor.
  - dude187 2mo ago
    They could call it XCode. Oh wait...
- mlindner 2mo ago
  You're being disingenuous. Tesla employee count, including founders, was 2 (or 3, depending on accounts) at the time that Elon "founded" Tesla. Tesla was a paper company with no assets to its name. In any normal company you would have agreed and negotiated cofounder status when coming into a company with that few employees. I don't think the lack of agreement changes whether someone is effectively a founder or not.
  - MrSkelter 2mo ago
    The idea that 2 or 3 founders means the next investor is a founder is total bunk. It wasn’t a “paper” company because Musk himself valued it in order to get access to their IP and the assets which were the founders themselves. Apple and Google had 2 founders. No one claims employee 3 or investor 1 is also a co-founder.
    - mlindner 2mo ago
      They didn't have any IP or assets. He did it because he and JB were already working on doing the same thing and it was better to join forces rather than set up two paper companies competing with each other.
bakies 2mo ago
Using grok at work and gpt at home, it's not better. Must be Elon fanboys and bots. It's what Elon does best. Subpar products with guerilla marketing campaigns.
lumost 2mo ago
It seems like a data/roadmap acquisition. Reports have been that Cursor's footprint was still growing rapidly, and their composer model wasn't bad. Take that data / training recipe and scale it up with compute to see what happens?
- GMoromisato 2mo ago
  That's a good point, and would make the price more reasonable.
smrtinsert 2mo ago
60 billion to drum up excitement as an acquisition into an overvalued megacorp that can now be dressed up as "AI". It's just numbers gaming, nothing to do with actual value.
sajithdilshan 2mo ago
I remember the days of Cursor, like early 2025. Now I use Claude Code for everything. If the Cursor or its agent cli can offer their models as an enterprise offering (e.g even through AWS bedrock so all corporate compliance nonsense are met) there is a huge market they can capture.
brazukadev 2mo ago
SpaceX bought the revenue and customer relationship to pump the numbers before the IPO. They have a lot of wasted computing so cursor revenue is kinda "profit" as the cost is already paid. And it was only a great deal because they probably paid with the hugely over-valuated stocks.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

_menelaus 2mo ago

Its 60B for a huge amount of RL coding data to become competitive in the space.

GMoromisato 2mo ago
That would make more sense to me.
mcphage 2mo ago
> to become competitive in the space. In the rocket ship space?
- ffsm8 2mo ago
  According to it's IPO documents, SpaceX is a 99% ai company, with a tiny offshoot doing space shipping, essentially

dgellow 2mo ago

Have you read SpaceX IPO prospectus? Their AI plans are completely nonsensical. I don’t believe there is an actual strategy here other than trying to surf on (and contribute to) the AI bubble

kridsdale1 2mo ago
SpaceX has a monopoly on The Universe. Therefore the TAM for selling tokens to all possible alien species is what justifies the valuation.
GMoromisato 2mo ago
SpaceX is betting that the world will be compute/energy constrained by 2030 and that orbital datacenters will become cost-effective for inference. If they are right about that, they will be the largest company in the solar system. If they are wrong, they will still be one of the largest telecom companies. To me this is a classic case of low-downside, very-high-upside.
- dgellow 2mo ago
  I hope you’re not in the business of investing other people’s money
- vrganj 2mo ago
  How do you cool a data center in a vacuum?
  - GMoromisato 2mo ago
    How is Starlink cooled? How is ISS cooled? They all use radiators, which work in a vacuum by--wait for it--radiating infrared into space. Orbital data centers do not defy the laws of physics. TBD whether they are economical relative to terrestrial data centers, but please don't succumb to misinformation.
    - dgellow 2mo ago
      They do and you’re the one spreading misinformation… the amount of energy you need to radiate for inference GPUs is enormous compared to any computer currently used in space. Energy dissipation by radiating is literally the least effective method and would require insanely large radiators just to be effective on paper. You also need to mitigate bit flips, meaning you throw away around 2/3 of your compute capacity. And that’s just the most basic things, before taking in account ALL the other problems you face doing compute in space someone with expertise in the domain could mention. Datacenters in space is a grift that won’t happen in any meaningful capacity and can be debunked by a 15y old who followed their physics courses

4lasGa 2mo ago

Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared, had the foresight to participate in a $2.5B round last year: https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/13/coding-assistant-cursor-raises-2-3b-5-months-after-its-previous-round/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/13/coding-assistant-cursor-ra... Maybe this is horse trading: SpaceX pays an insane price in stock for a vibe coding app, Trump will help Terafab and Starlink in any way possible. There are probably other Cursor investors among the Trump clan.

interactivecode 2mo ago

60B in all stock. So basically “free” assuming cursor leadership believes Elons feverdreams. I wonder how long until Elon makes everyone believe he founded Cursor.

kelvinjps10 2mo ago
it's going to be renamed to with the x (x agent or whatever) and then there will no mention of the original name Cursor.
- dude187 2mo ago
  They could call it XCode. Oh wait...
mlindner 2mo ago
You're being disingenuous. Tesla employee count, including founders, was 2 (or 3, depending on accounts) at the time that Elon "founded" Tesla. Tesla was a paper company with no assets to its name. In any normal company you would have agreed and negotiated cofounder status when coming into a company with that few employees. I don't think the lack of agreement changes whether someone is effectively a founder or not.
- MrSkelter 2mo ago
  The idea that 2 or 3 founders means the next investor is a founder is total bunk. It wasn’t a “paper” company because Musk himself valued it in order to get access to their IP and the assets which were the founders themselves. Apple and Google had 2 founders. No one claims employee 3 or investor 1 is also a co-founder.
  - mlindner 2mo ago
    They didn't have any IP or assets. He did it because he and JB were already working on doing the same thing and it was better to join forces rather than set up two paper companies competing with each other.

bakies 2mo ago

Using grok at work and gpt at home, it's not better. Must be Elon fanboys and bots. It's what Elon does best. Subpar products with guerilla marketing campaigns.

lumost 2mo ago

It seems like a data/roadmap acquisition. Reports have been that Cursor's footprint was still growing rapidly, and their composer model wasn't bad. Take that data / training recipe and scale it up with compute to see what happens?

GMoromisato 2mo ago
That's a good point, and would make the price more reasonable.

smrtinsert 2mo ago

60 billion to drum up excitement as an acquisition into an overvalued megacorp that can now be dressed up as "AI". It's just numbers gaming, nothing to do with actual value.

sajithdilshan 2mo ago

I remember the days of Cursor, like early 2025. Now I use Claude Code for everything. If the Cursor or its agent cli can offer their models as an enterprise offering (e.g even through AWS bedrock so all corporate compliance nonsense are met) there is a huge market they can capture.

brazukadev 2mo ago

SpaceX bought the revenue and customer relationship to pump the numbers before the IPO. They have a lot of wasted computing so cursor revenue is kinda "profit" as the cost is already paid. And it was only a great deal because they probably paid with the hugely over-valuated stocks.