Elon Musk’s SpaceX has agreed a colossal $60 billion (£44.7 billion) deal to acquire AI coding agent Cursor, further boosting its soaring valuation following a recent stock market debut.
The acquisition news provided a fresh impetus to SpaceX shares, which have been on an upward trajectory since their initial public offering (IPO) on Friday.
The agreement will see Mr Musk’s aerospace and technology enterprise absorb Anysphere, the San Francisco-based firm responsible for the innovative coding platform.
This substantial price reflects Cursor’s current stock valuation. SpaceX had previously confirmed in April that it was collaborating with Cursor on AI model training and held an option to purchase the company.
Cursor works by using AI technology to automate parts of the process of writing code and support software development.
The formal agreement of the takeover comes days after SpaceX’s IPO on the Nasdaq index in New York.
The record-breaking IPO valued the company at two trillion US dollars (£1.49 trillion) on the first day of trading.
It made Tesla and X owner Mr Musk – already a billionaire – the world’s first paper trillionaire and cemented his position as the richest man on the planet.
SpaceX shares have been rising since and are currently trading at more than 210 dollars per share – up from the 150 dollar opening price on Friday.
Its market capitalisation surpassed 2.8 trillion US dollars (£2.09 trillion) on Tuesday afternoon, overtaking Amazon’s 2.67 trillion (£1.99 trillion).
The company said in its IPO prospectus that the biggest potential market was the sale of business-oriented AI products, an ambition which is set to be helped by the Cursor acquisition.
On Friday, Mr Musk said in a speech from Starbase, Texas, that the record-breaking IPO was “hard to believe”.
He added: “If people had told me this was going to happen, I was like, ‘man, you must be smoking some really good crack, because I think this company is going to fail’.”
The entrepreneur promised to take humanity “to Mars and ultimately beyond” at the stock’s launch event.