Elon Musk Buys Pakistani Founder’s AI Company for $60 Billion

SpaceX is buying Anysphere, the company behind AI coding tool Cursor, in a $60 billion all-stock deal.

The deal is also a major moment for Pakistan’s tech community because Cursor was co-founded by Pakistani-born Sualeh Asif.

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026.

Major AI Deal

Reuters reported that SpaceX is buying Anysphere to strengthen its presence in the enterprise AI tools market. Cursor is one of the fastest-growing AI coding tools and is used by developers to generate, edit, and automate code.

The deal follows SpaceX’s recent Nasdaq debut, where the company’s valuation climbed to more than $2 trillion.

Pakistani Co-Founder

Dawn reported that Cursor was co-founded by Pakistani-born Sualeh Asif. Asif is originally from Karachi and attended Nixor College before going to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He also represented Pakistan at the International Math Olympiad from 2016 to 2018. While at MIT, he co-founded Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, with three friends.

Why SpaceX Wants Cursor

SpaceX is expanding deeper into AI after bringing xAI into the company earlier this year.

The acquisition gives SpaceX a stronger position in AI coding, one of the first areas where AI companies have found strong commercial demand from businesses.

Reuters reported that Cursor has scaled quickly and has about $2.6 billion in annualized business-to-business revenue, based on company data shared earlier this month.

Earlier Partnership

SpaceX had already been working with Cursor before the acquisition. In April, SpaceX announced an arrangement that gave it the right to acquire Cursor later this year for $60 billion.

If SpaceX had not bought Cursor, it would have paid $10 billion for the companies’ work together. SpaceX has now moved ahead with the acquisition.

Stock Deal

Axios reported that SpaceX has exercised a call option to acquire Cursor for $60 billion. The purchase will be made in SpaceX shares. Reuters reported that SpaceX will not use proceeds from its IPO for the transaction.

Backers and Growth

Cursor has attracted major Silicon Valley investors since its founding in 2022. Reuters reported that the San Francisco-based company is backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, Nvidia, and Google.

Axios reported that Cursor had raised $3.38 billion since its founding from investors including Thrive Capital, a16z, OpenAI Startup Fund, Accel, Coatue, Nvidia, and others.

What Comes Next

SpaceX said it plans to release an AI model on Cursor, along with Grok Build, xAI’s coding agent.

Reuters reported that SpaceX has been jointly training these tools for several months.

The deal puts Cursor at the centre of SpaceX’s wider AI push and places a Pakistani-born founder among the key names behind one of the biggest AI startup transactions so far.