OpenAI said it plans to stop providing its AI models to Cursor, the coding-tool company now owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, escalating the long-running rivalry between Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
The AI company said on Friday that it had proposed November 12, 2026 as the shutdown date, citing concerns over SpaceX’s compliance with its terms of service.
“We are making this choice because 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,” OpenAI said in a blog post.
The decision adds another chapter to the increasingly bitter relationship between Musk and OpenAI. The two have been locked in a legal and public dispute over the direction of the AI company, which Musk co-founded before leaving.
Musk sued OpenAI and Altman, accusing them of abandoning the organisation’s original nonprofit mission for financial gain. A federal jury ruled against Musk earlier this year, finding that his case had been filed too late.
Musk dismissed OpenAI’s latest move, responding on X that he “couldn’t care less” while accusing Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman of being untrustworthy.
Cursor co-founder Michael Truell, who is now an executive at SpaceX, said the company was in discussions with OpenAI to resolve the dispute.
OpenAI said the decision was also linked to X, formerly Twitter, which became part of Musk’s business empire after his acquisition of the platform. According to OpenAI, X breached the terms of its contract with the company following Musk’s takeover.
The AI company said large partnerships such as its agreement with SpaceX typically require customised contracts to ensure compliance and safe integration at scale.
OpenAI added that its agreement with Cursor included a limited window for cancellation following a change of control.
The dispute could nevertheless benefit Anthropic, which competes with OpenAI and has an existing partnership with SpaceX. Following OpenAI’s announcement, Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown said the company planned to increase computing resources supporting Claude models in Cursor.
The development highlights how competition among leading AI companies is increasingly extending beyond model performance and into access to developers, computing infrastructure and strategic partnerships.
