OpenAI notified Cursor, the artificial intelligence (AI) coding tool acquired by Elon Musk's SpaceX, that it is terminating their contract. Musk immediately pushed back, calling OpenAI's leadership "frauds."
OpenAI said on the 29th (local time) that it informed parent company SpaceX of its intent to end the contract to supply its models to Cursor.
OpenAI said it proposed Nov. 12 as the end date for providing its models, explaining that this applies the maximum notice period specified in the contract.
OpenAI cited Musk's past breaches of contract as the basis for the decision, saying it is hard to believe SpaceX would use OpenAI's technology in line with the terms. It added, "Because we consider it very important for developers to have broad access to our models, this decision was truly difficult."
One of the alleged contract breaches OpenAI referenced appears to be when xAI (now SpaceXAI) used OpenAI models while training its own AI model. Musk, testifying as a witness in an April lawsuit with OpenAI, partially acknowledged this. OpenAI also pointed to Musk breaking deal terms when acquiring the social media platform X as a similar case.
In response to the news, Musk said on X that he "doesn't care at all," writing, "Scam Altman and Greg Stockman (Stockman) are unbelievable crooks who stole an open-source nonprofit."
Musk was an early co-founder of OpenAI but later split. He sued Altman and Brockman for $150 billion (about 206 trillion won) in damages, saying they pursued private gain in violation of the founding purpose of OpenAI, which launched as a nonprofit. However, Musk lost that suit because it was filed after the deadline.
OpenAI previously attempted to acquire Cursor's developer, Anysphere, but the deal fell through. SpaceX later bought Cursor for $60 billion, and the merger process was completed on the 15th.
Michael Truell, Cursor's co-founder and now a SpaceX executive, said, "Cursor has trusted the OpenAI platform as a neutral infrastructure for our business," adding, "We are in discussions with the OpenAI team to resolve this issue." He added that OpenAI models account for 5% of Cursor's user traffic.
Meanwhile, Tom Brown, co-founder of OpenAI's top rival Anthropic, said, "We will continue to expand compute resources to provide Claude models on Cursor."