OpenAI will stop providing its models to Cursor on November 12 after SpaceX completed a $60 billion acquisition of Anysphere, Cursor’s parent company.
The decision follows ownership changes and contract concerns involving Elon Musk’s companies. The move comes as competition intensifies across the generative AI market.
Fortune Business Insights expects the sector to grow from $103.58 billion in 2025 to $161 billion in 2026, while developers increasingly question whether leading model providers will continue supporting rival platforms.
OpenAI Links Exit to Contract and Ownership Concerns
OpenAI said its decision was connected to concerns about Musk’s companies and their compliance with service agreements. The company said it had lost confidence in SpaceX’s ability to follow its terms, citing alleged contract violations involving Twitter, now part of SpaceX, and xAI.
OpenAI also said Musk had acknowledged under oath that xAI violated its terms this year. Its customized agreement with Cursor included provisions allowing termination within a defined period after a change in ownership.
The company said it selected the latest shutdown date permitted under the agreement and described the decision as “incredibly tough.” OpenAI also stated that future models, including Astra, would not be provided to Cursor.
Cursor Says Immediate Traffic Impact Is Limited
Cursor management played down the short-term operational effect. Michael Truell, Cursor’s co-founder and now a SpaceX executive, said on X on August 29 that OpenAI models represent about 5% of Cursor’s traffic.
Truell also said both companies were discussing the separation and noted that Cursor had been among OpenAI’s earliest customers. The relatively small traffic share suggests that Cursor’s current usage depends mainly on other model providers.
However, Cursor has promoted access to multiple models as a central feature, allowing users to choose systems based on price, performance, or specific coding tasks. Losing OpenAI therefore reduces the range of models available through the platform.
SpaceX Deal Reshapes Cursor’s Position in AI
An August 14 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said SpaceX completed its acquisition of Anysphere in an all-stock transaction valuing Cursor at $60 billion. The agreement made Anysphere’s common and preferred shares exchangeable for about 389.3 million SpaceX Class A shares.
Following the acquisition, Cursor said it would gain access to “the largest fleet of GPUs in the world,” supporting greater computing capacity and lower-cost development of advanced models.
The split also comes as AI spending accelerates. Gartner projected July 20 that worldwide end-user spending on AI models and platforms will rise from $39.311 billion in 2025 to $64.252 billion in 2026, a 63.4% increase.
2025: $39.3 billion | 2026 forecast: $64.3 billion | Year-over-year growth: 63.4%. Source: Gartner, July 20, 2026.
Spending on generative AI models alone is forecast to grow 117%. That growth highlights the expanding commercial stakes surrounding model access agreements.
