In a late-night blog post final Friday, OpenAI mentioned it could wind down its partnership with Cursor, the startup behind one of the crucial well-liked AI coding instruments in the marketplace. The explanation OpenAI gave for the choice is successfully that it could’t belief Elon Musk, whose firm SpaceX recently acquired Cursor in a $60 billion deal.
In doing so, OpenAI walked away from one among its most necessary prospects. Cursor has lengthy paid OpenAI charges to supply the ChatGPT-maker’s fashions to builders utilizing its AI coding editor. In the beginning of 2026, Cursor was one among OpenAI’s high 5 prospects by way of income, folks conversant in the matter inform WIRED. By the spring of this yr, OpenAI estimated Cursor would carry in additional than $1 billion in annualized income for the ChatGPT maker, based mostly on the partnership’s efficiency at the moment, the folks 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 know-how 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 next year, it’s attempting to point out traders a extra secure 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 totally different traces of enterprise, together with subscriptions, advertisements in ChatGPT, and promoting entry to its AI coding device, Codex.
Shedding a significant buyer like Cursor could not damage OpenAI financially as a lot because it as soon as would have, however it was actually a tough choice. The corporate acknowledged in its weblog publish that ending the partnership could harm its standing with builders—a neighborhood it has spent years fastidiously working to win over—by reducing off a significant 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 in a while Friday in a post on X, claiming that the ChatGPT-maker’s fashions solely “serve about 5% of Cursor consumer site visitors.” The remark appeared designed to indicate 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 maths” behind the 5 p.c quantity.
WIRED beforehand reported that Cursor leaders hoped to remain a platform for third-party AI fashions from OpenAI and Anthropic, even after the SpaceX acquisition. Some AI insiders thought of that wishful pondering, 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 rivals, for effectively over a yr.
Evidently, that association was not potential with Musk accountable for Cursor. OpenAI could have decided that its Cursor partnership was not definitely worth the threat that SpaceX may distill its greatest 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 models to train its own. The obvious admission got here throughout Musk’s deposition in his lawsuit towards 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.
