SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor on August 14. The transaction gave OpenAI a limited contractual window to terminate its agreement following the ownership change, according to OpenAI.
Rather than ending access immediately, OpenAI said it is using the maximum notice period allowed under the contract. Existing OpenAI models are expected to remain available through Cursor during that period, but upcoming models will not be added.
OpenAI specifically pointed to Astra, an upcoming model, as one reason for taking a stricter approach to how its technology is distributed. The company said increasingly capable models require greater confidence that partners will follow its usage terms and operate integrations with appropriate safeguards. “To work with a large partner like SpaceX, we typically rely on custom contracts to ensure compliance with our terms of service and that the integration provides for safety at scale,” OpenAI said.
The company cited two previous disputes involving Musk-owned businesses. OpenAI said Twitter, now part of SpaceX, violated the terms of an earlier contract after Musk acquired the company. It also said Musk acknowledged under oath earlier this year that xAI had violated OpenAI’s terms of service.
Cursor CEO Michael Truell said OpenAI models currently account for about 5% of the coding platform’s user traffic and that the companies are discussing the situation. “OpenAI models serve about 5% of Cursor user traffic, and we’re speaking with the OpenAI team to resolve this,” Truell wrote on X. “Cursor was one of the very first users of OpenAI, we’ve worked closely with their team for years, and we’ve trusted their platform to be neutral infrastructure for our business.”
OpenAI said it has worked with Cursor for nearly four years and emphasized that its decision was directed at the change in ownership rather than dissatisfaction with Cursor itself. “We’ve worked with Cursor for nearly four years and have enormous respect for their team, their product, and what they’ve built for the developer community,” OpenAI said.
The company also acknowledged that developers who rely on its models inside Cursor will bear the immediate impact of the change and said it intends to support them through the transition.
The move adds another complication to the increasingly competitive market for AI coding tools, where developers often rely on products that offer access to models from several providers rather than a single AI company.
Anthropic, meanwhile, indicated that its relationship with Cursor will continue. Anthropic executive Tom Brown said the company plans to increase the computing capacity available for Claude models through Cursor following the SpaceX acquisition. “Cursor has been a trusted partner of Anthropic since Sonnet 3.5,” Brown wrote. “We’ll continue to increase compute to support Claude models in Cursor and are excited for what comes next with them at SpaceX.”
For Cursor, OpenAI’s planned departure removes one model provider from its platform but does not eliminate access immediately. The larger change comes after November 12, when the proposed termination would end the existing relationship and leave future OpenAI models unavailable through Cursor unless the companies reach a different arrangement.
This analysis is based on reporting from OpenAI & CNBC.
Image courtesy of The Tech Outlook.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
