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OpenAI escalates rift with Elon Musk as it cuts off SpaceX-owned Cursor

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Elon Musk 2015
Photo: Steve Jurvetson / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

OpenAI said on Friday that it ⁠plans to stop providing AI models to Cursor, the coding-tool company now owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX, marking a further escalation in the bitter rivalry between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Musk.

"We are making this choice because we cannot ⁠be confident that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service, based on our ​experience with ⁠Elon Musk's companies violating contracts," OpenAI said ‌in a blog post.

In its blog post, OpenAI said that X, formerly known as Twitter and now part of SpaceX, had breached the ‌terms of its contract with OpenAI after Musk acquired the platform. During the trial, Musk's lawyer said that ​Musk ⁠and other witnesses had testified that Altman was a liar, while OpenAI argued that Musk had sought control of the company.

Musk, the world's richest person, had ‌sued OpenAI and Altman for "stealing a charity" by betraying the company's original nonprofit mission for their own enrichment. However, Michael Truell, a co-founder of ⁠Cursor and now an executive at SpaceX, said on X that the company was speaking with the OpenAI team to resolve this issue.

Hours after OpenAI's announcement, Anthropic, which rivals both firms but has an ongoing partnership with SpaceX, said it planned to increase compute to support Claude models in Cursor, according to Tom Brown, one of the co-founders of the firm.

The ChatGPT-maker said it proposed ⁠a shutoff date of November 12, 2026, adding that its agreement with Cursor gave it a limited time window to cancel ‌the contract following "a change of ​control. SpaceX announced a deal to buy Anysphere, the startup ‌behind Cursor, for $60 billion in an all-stock ​deal in June, and completed the acquisition earlier this month.

A federal jury ruled against Musk earlier this year, finding that he had filed the case too late.

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