Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX
OpenAI announced it is winding down its contract to provide models to Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX, with a proposed shutoff date of November 12, 2026. OpenAI stated it cannot be confident SpaceX will adhere to its terms of service, citing past contract and terms violations by Elon Musk's companies, including Twitter and xAI. The decision allows OpenAI to cancel the agreement following a change of control while providing developers the maximum contractual notice.
The Core Development
Today, we notified SpaceX that we intend to wind down our contract providing OpenAI models to Cursor, with a proposed shutoff date of November 12, 2026. To maximize the time that developers can retain access to our models through Cursor, we are giving the maximum notice provided by our contract. This decision was incredibly tough, as we care deeply about our models being broadly available for developers. 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.
To work with a large partner like SpaceX, we typically rely on custom contracts to ensure compliance with our terms of service and that the integration provides for safety at scale. After Musk acquired Twitter, now part of SpaceX, the company broke (opens in a new window) the terms of our contract (alongside many others). Under oath earlier this year, Musk admitted (opens in a new window) that xAI, now also part of SpaceX, had violated OpenAI’s terms of service (terms which are similar to xAI’s own).
Our custom agreement with Cursor gives us a limited time window to cancel it after a change of control. As AI capabilities advance, we also have a new level of accountability to ensure our upcoming model, Astra , is being used in accordance with our terms. Given all of this, we’ve decided to hold the contract cancellation to the latest date we can while not providing future models to Cursor.
Deployment & Availability
We’ve worked with Cursor for nearly four years and have enormous respect for their team, their product, and what they’ve built for the developer community. We know that the people most affected by this decision are the developers who rely on OpenAI models in Cursor. We care about their experience in this transition and we’re ready to go above and beyond to support them.
Why it matters
This development highlights how corporate acquisitions and growing concerns over terms-of-service compliance can disrupt established AI integrations. It underscores the tightening accountability major labs are enforcing regarding how their advanced models are used.