ISLAMABAD: In one of the largest technology acquisitions in recent history, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has agreed to acquire Anysphere, the startup behind the popular AI coding agent Cursor, for $60 billion in an all-stock deal, marking a monumental achievement for the company’s Pakistan-born co-founder Sualeh Asif and cementing SpaceX’s dominance in the rapidly growing enterprise AI tools market.
SpaceX has exercised the option to acquire @cursor_ai in an all-stock transaction with the goal of building the world’s most useful AI models.
For the past few months, SpaceXAI has been jointly training a model with Cursor, which will be released in Cursor and Grok Build soon.… https://t.co/X5mepgXgjJ
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 16, 2026
The blockbuster acquisition comes just months after SpaceX announced a partnership with Cursor, an AI code-generation startup co-founded by Asif, and follows the company’s record-breaking Nasdaq debut last week, which saw its valuation surge past $2 trillion.
From Karachi to Silicon Valley: Asif’s remarkable journey
For Pakistan-born Sualeh Asif, the deal represents the culmination of a remarkable entrepreneurial journey that has seen him rise from his roots in Karachi to the pinnacle of Silicon Valley’s fiercely competitive AI sector.
Also Read: Pakistan-Born Sualeh Asif’s AI Startup Cursor Set for $60 Billion SpaceX Deal
As co-founder of Anysphere, Asif helped build Cursor into one of the most innovative AI coding platforms in the industry, drawing waves of developers worldwide and positioning the startup as a formidable rival to industry giants Anthropic and OpenAI.
Strategic move for SpaceX’s AI ambitions
The acquisition will give SpaceX’s AI division xAI, which was acquired by SpaceX in February, a significantly stronger foothold in AI coding, one of the first areas where companies have successfully transformed AI into a genuine source of enterprise revenue.
Capitalising on this growing interest is crucial for SpaceX, as the company had pitched its IPO investors on an addressable market worth $28.5 trillion, with a substantial portion expected to come from AI for businesses.
Cursor’s struggle for computing power
Cursor has been one of several Silicon Valley startups that have drawn developers by using AI to automate coding. However, a lack of access to computing power had hampered its growth, making the SpaceX acquisition a strategic lifeline for the startup.
“Cursor does not have the scale of OpenAI or Anthropic, but it has built some very impressive coding models relative to cost. That makes this a positive move for SpaceX,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
🚨 Breaking: SpaceX has agreed to acquire Cursor, the world’s fastest growing software startup, for $60 billion in an all stock deal.
Cursor is one of the world’s leading AI coding platforms and one of the fastest-growing software companies. This marks one of the largest AI… pic.twitter.com/suFZTDYpqo
— Satyamurthy Nageswaran (@satya_murthy) June 16, 2026
Stock surge and market impact
SpaceX shares jumped 10% in early trading, adding approximately $247 billion to its market capitalisation of $2.53 trillion. At $211.27, the stock has climbed more than 56% from its IPO price of $135.
If the gains hold, SpaceX is set to overtake Amazon in market value to become the fifth-largest company globally.
SpaceX announced that it would soon release an AI model on Cursor, as well as Grok Build, xAI’s coding agent, which the company has been jointly training for several months. The all-stock transaction, which will not utilize proceeds from SpaceX’s IPO, is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026.
For Pakistan’s burgeoning tech industry, Sualeh Asif’s success serves as an inspiring milestone, demonstrating that talent from the country can compete and thrive at the highest levels of global technology innovation.
Asif’s journey from Pakistan to the helm of a $60 billion acquisition is set to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs across South Asia.
