OpenAI announced Friday that it intends to stop providing its AI models to Cursor, a coding tool company now owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX. The decision marks a significant escalation in the public rivalry between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Musk.
In a blog post, OpenAI stated its decision was based on a lack of confidence that SpaceX would adhere to its terms of service. "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," the company said.
Musk, who also leads SpaceX and Tesla, responded on X, formerly Twitter, Saturday morning, stating, "I couldn’t care less." He accused Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman of being "untrustworthy" and reiterated his past claims that they "stole an open source nonprofit."
Musk previously filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman, alleging they betrayed the company's original nonprofit mission for personal gain. A federal jury ruled against Musk earlier this year, determining his lawsuit was filed too late.
OpenAI's blog post also noted that X, formerly Twitter and now part of SpaceX, had breached its contract with OpenAI after Musk acquired the platform. The AI company indicated that custom contracts are typically required for large partners like SpaceX to ensure compliance and safety at scale.
OpenAI has proposed a shutoff date of November 12, citing a clause in its agreement with Cursor that allows for contract cancellation following a "change of control." SpaceX announced its deal to acquire Anysphere, the startup behind Cursor, for $60 billion in an all-stock transaction in June, completing the acquisition earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Anthropic, a competitor to both OpenAI and SpaceX, announced it plans to increase compute resources to support its Claude models within Cursor, according to Tom Brown, a co-founder of the firm. Anthropic currently has a partnership with SpaceX.
Michael Truell, a co-founder of Cursor and an executive at SpaceX, indicated on X that the company is in discussions with OpenAI to resolve the issue.