In a late-night blog post final Friday, OpenAI mentioned it might wind down its partnership with Cursor, the startup behind one of the crucial common AI coding instruments available on the market. The explanation OpenAI gave for the choice is successfully that it may well’t belief Elon Musk, whose firm SpaceX not too long ago acquired Cursor in a $60 billion deal.
In doing so, OpenAI walked away from one in every of its most vital prospects. Cursor has lengthy paid OpenAI charges to supply the ChatGPT-maker’s fashions to builders utilizing its AI coding editor. At the beginning of 2026, Cursor was one in every of OpenAI’s prime 5 prospects when it comes to income, individuals conversant in the matter inform WIRED. By the spring of this yr, OpenAI estimated Cursor would deliver in additional than $1 billion in annualized income for the ChatGPT maker, based mostly on the partnership’s efficiency at the moment, the individuals mentioned.
The figures, which haven’t been beforehand reported, point out the monetary loss OpenAI is prepared to tackle to keep away from doing enterprise with Musk. OpenAI declined to remark. Representatives for SpaceX and Cursor didn’t instantly reply to WIRED’s request for remark.
“We’re making this selection as a result of we can’t be assured that SpaceX will use our expertise inside our phrases of service, based mostly on our expertise with Elon Musk’s corporations violating contracts,” mentioned OpenAI within the weblog publish.
As OpenAI prepares to go public subsequent yr, it’s attempting to indicate traders a extra steady enterprise—ideally one which doesn’t rely so closely on the goodwill of Musk. OpenAI reportedly now generates greater than $40 billion in annualized income, drawing on a number of completely different traces of enterprise, together with subscriptions, adverts in ChatGPT, and promoting entry to its AI coding device, Codex.
Shedding a serious buyer like Cursor might not damage OpenAI financially as a lot because it as soon as would have, but it surely was actually a troublesome determination. The corporate acknowledged in its weblog publish that ending the partnership might injury its standing with builders—a neighborhood it has spent years fastidiously working to win over—by reducing off a serious channel they use to entry OpenAI’s fashions.
Michael Truell, Cursor’s founder and CEO, who’s now main groups at SpaceX, responded publicly to OpenAI’s announcement hours afterward Friday in a post on X, claiming that the ChatGPT-maker’s fashions solely “serve about 5% of Cursor person site visitors.” The remark appeared designed to suggest that OpenAI’s fashions weren’t extremely popular with builders utilizing Cursor, and wouldn’t meaningfully have an effect on its enterprise.
OpenAI’s head of core merchandise, Thibault Sottiaux, was fast to point out that token utilization is “not a proxy for income nor worth created,” and requested Truell to “share the mathematics” behind the 5 p.c quantity.
WIRED beforehand reported that Cursor leaders hoped to stay a platform for third-party AI fashions from OpenAI and Anthropic, even after the SpaceX acquisition. Some AI insiders thought of that wishful considering, assuming that Cursor and OpenAI’s breakup has lengthy been a foregone conclusion. As OpenAI builds Codex into a big AI coding enterprise, it more and more finds itself competing with Cursor for patrons. However, the businesses have operated comparatively peacefully, as companions and opponents, for nicely over a yr.
Evidently, that association was not attainable with Musk accountable for Cursor. OpenAI might have decided that its Cursor partnership was not well worth the danger that SpaceX would possibly distill its finest AI fashions. The corporate famous in its weblog publish that, earlier this yr, Musk seemingly mentioned that xAI—now part of SpaceX—used OpenAI’s fashions to coach its personal. The obvious admission got here throughout Musk’s deposition in his lawsuit in opposition to OpenAI, wherein he claimed that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman had stolen a charity they created collectively roughly a decade in the past. A federal jury dismissed the go well with earlier this yr.
