OpenAI is ending its model partnership with Cursor after SpaceX acquired the AI coding company, accepting the loss of a customer that once ranked among its five largest sources of revenue.
The decision turns a longstanding commercial relationship into a test of how far an AI provider will go when a partner becomes a competitor controlled by someone it does not trust. OpenAI said it could not be confident that SpaceX would use its technology within the terms of service, citing its experience with companies led by Elon Musk.
A billion-dollar relationship winds down
Cursor has paid to make OpenAI models available through its coding editor. People familiar with the relationship told Wired that Cursor was among OpenAI’s five biggest customers by revenue at the start of 2026. By the spring, OpenAI estimated that the partnership could generate more than $1 billion in annualized revenue based on its performance at that time.
OpenAI declined to comment on those figures, while SpaceX and Cursor did not respond to Wired before publication. The numbers are therefore attributed to people familiar with the matter rather than confirmed financial disclosures.
Cursor CEO Michael Truell responded that OpenAI models handled only about 5 percent of user traffic on the platform. OpenAI product executive Thibault Sottiaux challenged the implication, arguing that token volume does not measure either revenue or value and asking Truell to show how the figure was calculated. Neither exchange establishes the final financial effect on Cursor users or either company.
Trust and competition converge
The breakup follows SpaceX’s reported $60 billion acquisition of Cursor. OpenAI said it was concerned about whether SpaceX would comply with its service terms. The company also pointed to an apparent statement by Musk that xAI, now part of SpaceX, had used OpenAI models to train its own systems.
That concern sits alongside a commercial conflict. OpenAI is expanding Codex into a substantial coding business, placing it in increasingly direct competition with Cursor even as Cursor has continued distributing OpenAI models. The two companies had managed that partner-and-rival position for more than a year.
Their history began before Cursor became a major coding platform. OpenAI’s startup fund participated in Cursor’s 2023 seed round, and OpenAI later explored acquiring the company, although talks did not advance. Truell also appeared in OpenAI marketing for the launch of GPT-5 in 2025. Those ties make the current separation more than a routine supplier change.
OpenAI accepts developer disruption
OpenAI acknowledged that winding down the partnership could hurt its standing with developers by removing a widely used route to its models. The company nevertheless appears more able to absorb the loss than it once was. Wired reports that OpenAI now produces more than $40 billion in annualized revenue across subscriptions, ChatGPT advertising and access to Codex, although OpenAI did not confirm the reported Cursor figures.
Cursor is not abandoning outside models altogether. Anthropic cofounder Tom Brown said Claude models would remain available through the editor. The source notes that Anthropic also has a major infrastructure relationship with SpaceX, while previously cutting off another coding startup when OpenAI was rumored to be buying it. That contrast illustrates how infrastructure, distribution and model competition now overlap.
The immediate outcome is clear: OpenAI is surrendering a valuable distribution channel because it views the new owner as an unacceptable contractual risk. What remains uncertain is how quickly Cursor can shift demand to other providers and whether developers see the move as a principled boundary or an unwanted limitation. The answers will determine whether walking away from a billion-dollar customer strengthens OpenAI’s control over its technology or weakens its reach among programmers.
