OpenAI announced on Friday its intention to stop providing its artificial intelligence models to Cursor, which is now owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX. This decision marks a further escalation of the strained relationship between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Musk.
The conflict between Musk and Altman has lasted several years and culminated earlier this year in a lawsuit filed by Musk against OpenAI for $150 billion. During this process, Musk's lawyer stated that Musk and other witnesses testified that Altman was lying, while OpenAI claimed that Musk sought control over the company.
A statement was published on the OpenAI blog: 'We are making this choice because we cannot be sure that SpaceX will use our technology in accordance with our terms of service, based on our experience with contract violations by Elon Musk's companies.'
Musk responded early Saturday in an X post, writing: 'I don't care.'
He accused Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman of 'unreliability,' reiterating his claim that they 'stole an open-source non-profit program.' Musk, the world's richest person, had sued OpenAI and Altman for 'theft of charity,' alleging they betrayed the company's original non-profit mission for personal gain. However, a federal jury earlier this year ruled against Musk, determining that he filed the lawsuit too late.
Nevertheless, Michael Truell, co-founder of Cursor and current head of SpaceX, reported on X that the company is negotiating with the OpenAI team to resolve the issue.
Deactivation Date
A few hours after OpenAI's announcement, Anthropic, a competitor to both firms but with an ongoing partnership with SpaceX, stated that it plans to increase computing power to support Claude models in Cursor, according to Tom Brown, one of the firm's co-founders.
In its blog, OpenAI indicated that X, formerly known as Twitter and now part of SpaceX, violated the terms of its contract with OpenAI after Musk acquired the platform. The AI company added: 'To work with a major partner like SpaceX, we typically rely on individual contracts to ensure compliance with our terms of service and to ensure safety at scale integration.'
The ChatGPT developer stated that they proposed a deactivation date of November 12, 2026, clarifying that their agreement with Cursor provided a limited window for contract termination after a 'change of control.' SpaceX announced the acquisition of Anysphere, the startup behind Cursor, for $60 billion in a stock deal in June, and completed the acquisition this month.