A merged photo shows OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (L) on April 28, 2026 and Elon Musk on April 29, 2026 during the trial of Elon Musk’s lawsuit over turning OpenAI for-profit in federal court in Oakland, California, USA. Manuel Orbegozo | ReutersOpenAI announced late Friday that it will end developer access to its models on Cursor, following the acquisition of the AI coding startup by Elon Musk’s SpaceX earlier this month. Cursor CEO Michael Truell said in a post on SpaceX-owned social network In its announcement, OpenAI said: “We are making this decision because we cannot be sure that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service, based on our experience with Elon Musk’s companies violating contracts.” Its “proposed closing date” for OpenAI models through Cursor is Nov. 12, 2026. OpenAI also said it would not provide future models to Cursor as the deal ends. Cursor and OpenAI did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment. SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor on August 14, according to financial documents. Before SpaceX went public in June, it had acquired X and xAI from Musk in February. OpenAI’s move away from Cursor, now that SpaceX owns it, is part of a long-running and acrimonious standoff between Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Chairman Greg Brockman. their claim that they “robbed an open source nonprofit.” Musk sued OpenAI, Altman and Brockman in 2024 after co-founding and helping fund the AI company as a nonprofit research lab in 2015. Musk left OpenAI’s board of directors in 2018 after hiring talent from outside the company, cutting donations he had promised to OpenAI and clashing with other board members over its direction. He later became one of its most prominent critics. After Musk left, OpenAI launched highly successful AI products, namely ChatGPT, partnered with tech titans like Microsoft, turned its business into a for-profit organization with a nonprofit parent, and raised huge sums of funding. Musk has argued in court that OpenAI’s restructuring violated its founding commitments and has described the change as “stealing from a charity.” OpenAI disputes their claims. Although he lost his lawsuit earlier this year, Musk has promised to appeal. As the market for “vibe coding” (or AI-assisted coding tools) heats up, OpenAI is poised to go public next year, while rival Anthropic has been holding preliminary meetings with bankers ahead of a possible initial public offering (IPO) this year with an expected valuation of up to $2 trillion, CNBC previously reported. OpenAI’s decision to end developer access to its models through Cursor is not a first for the industry. Last June, Anthropic, which now partners with SpaceX and rents computing capacity from Musk’s company, blocked Windsurf from accessing its Claude AI models. Anthropic co-founder and executive Tom Brown wrote in a post on from some tech executives at Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
