SpaceX deal with Cursor could involve $8.5 billion deferred services fee
SpaceX would pay $60 billion worth of Class A stock to buy the company, the filing shows.
If the deal doesn’t happen, Cursor can receive a $1.5 billion termination fee and a $8.5 billion deferred services fee, payable in cash, or Class A stock if SpaceX hasn’t gone public by the time the fees become payable.
SpaceX can exercise a call option that would involve acquiring Cursor in the 30 days after Sept. 30, or after seven trading days after the IPO, whichever comes first.
As of Jan. 31, Cursor had $2.7 billion in cash and equivalents, with $550 million in liabilities, the filing shows.
— Jordan Novet
Anthropic to pay SpaceX $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, filing says
The AI company will use all of the compute capacity at SpaceX’s Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee, the companies announced previously. Anthropic will get access to more than 300 megawatts of compute capacity, and also “expressed interest” in working with SpaceX to develop multiple gigawatts of capacity in space.
SpaceX said in its IPO filing that capacity will ramp in May and June of this year at a reduced fee. The agreement can be terminated by either company with 90 days of notice, the filing says.
–Ashley Capoot
SpaceX revenue jumped 15% to $4.69 billion in first quarter
The company recorded a net loss in the latest quarter of $4.28 billion after losing $4.94 billion in 2025.
—Lora Kolodny
Musk controls 85% of SpaceX voting power
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a state banquet for President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14, 2026.
Brendan Smialowski | Afp | Getty Images
Musk controls 85% of SpaceX voting power, with 849.5 million Class A shares and 5.57 billion Class B shares, according to Wednesday’s prospectus.
Other than Musk, no person or entity has a stake larger than 5%.
— Jordan Novet
SpaceX merger with xAI created a trillion-dollar plus company
Musk merged SpaceX with xAI in February, creating a combined entity that he valued at the time at $1.25 trillion.
Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, has a market cap of about $1.6 trillion, and was previously the main source of his liquid wealth.
In a statement announcing the SpaceX-xAI merger, Musk said the deal was meant to create “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform.”
But by April, Musk acknowledged that xAI, and the tech underlying its AI chatbot and image generator Grok, “was not built right first time around,” and needed to be “rebuilt from the foundations up.”
Grok was supposed to be xAI’s answer to ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, but has remained more of a niche player. Grok drew lawsuits and investigations in the U.S. and Europe after it enabled the widespread creation and sharing of nonconsensual explicit, deepfakes, which were based on photos and videos of real women and children.
As part of the SpaceX overhaul of xAI’s business and technology, the company struck a deal last month to acquire Cursor for $60 billion, or pay a $10 billion breakup fee. That transaction is expected to move ahead after SpaceX shares begin trading.
SpaceX is also acting as a so-called neocloud, renting out xAI’s compute capacity at its Colossus 1 data center in Memphis to Anthropic.
—Lora Kolodny
SpaceX’s company town: Starbase, Texas
New construction rises above the SpaceX production facility as preparations continue for the 12th test flight of the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster at Starbase in Texas, U.S., May 16, 2026.
Steve Nesius | Reuters
SpaceX is based in Texas, along the Gulf Coast. In 2024, Musk said he was moving SpaceX’s headquarters from Southern California to Boca Chica, Texas, where the company built and launched its rockets.
Last year, SpaceX was successful in converting Boca Chica into an official company town named Starbase through an election. Around 500 people, including SpaceX employees, lived in the community at the time, according to the Texas Tribune.
Starbase’s official website describes the town as the “gateway to Mars,” and “a launch site unlike any place on Earth, with humanity’s future in space unfolding in plain view for the public.”
Bobby Peden, who has spent roughly 13 years working for Musk’s rocket maker, is the town’s inaugural mayor after getting elected last May.
SpaceX is planning for a 12th test flight of its massive Starship rocket that will launch from a new pad at the Starbase facility as early as May 21.
“Development, manufacturing, testing, and launch of Starship currently takes place at Starbase, home to SpaceX headquarters and one of the world’s first commercial spaceports designed for orbital missions,” the prospectus says.
SpaceX is currently being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration after an unidentified worker died at a Starbase facility on May 15, as the San Antonio Express-News reported Monday.
— Lora Kolodny