OpenAI Cuts Off Cursor's Model Access After SpaceX Acquisition

OpenAI is ending Cursor’s direct access to its AI models after Elon Musk’s SpaceX acquired its parent company, Anysphere. This is the next move in the increasingly bitter conflict between Elon Musk and the company he helped found.

Just because you re filthy rich doesn t mean you still can t have petty fights. In the latest example of big-wig tech fusses, OpenAI said it notified SpaceX on Aug. 28 that it intends to wind down its Cursor contract with a Nov. 12, 2026 shutoff date. Why? OpenAI said, “We are making this choice because we cannot be confident that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service.

After all, OpenAI continued, After Musk acquired Twitter, now part of SpaceX, the company broke ⁠ the terms of our contract (alongside many others). Under oath earlier this year, Musk admitted ⁠ that xAI, now also part of SpaceX, had violated OpenAI’s terms of service (terms which are similar to xAI’s own).

So, OpenAI is invoking a limited termination right in its Cursor agreement following SpaceX buying Cursor to end the deal. OpenAI is declining to provide new OpenAI models to the coding tool during the transition.

Elon Musk replied on X, I couldn’t care less. Scam Altman and Greg Stockman are utterly untrustworthy assholes who stole an open-source nonprofit. Yep, there s no love lost here.

The decision may or may not hurt Cursor too much.

The AI programming company also offers models including Claude Fable, Opus, and Sonnet; Gemini 3.1 Pro and Gemini 3.7 Flash; and SpaceXAI s own Grok LLMs. Still, it cuts one of the most prominent AI coding environments off from a longtime foundation-model partner and underscores how access to leading AI models has become leverage in an increasingly competitive developer-tools business.

OpenAI said it had worked with Cursor for nearly four years and described the move as “incredibly tough,” noting that developers who use OpenAI models through Cursor would be the people most directly affected. The company said it will keep models available until the latest date permitted under the agreement, but will withhold future releases, including its upcoming Astra model, from Cursor.

Cursor CEO Michael Truell tried to make light of OpenAI s move. He said on X that OpenAI models only serve about 5% of the platform’s user traffic .