Cursor, the artificial intelligence code-generation startup co-founded by Karachi-born Sualeh Asif, has entered into a $60 billion acquisition agreement with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, according to multiple reports surfacing on Thursday. The deal marks one of the most significant exits in recent artificial intelligence startup history and places a Pakistani co-founder at the centre of a transaction that has captured global attention.
SpaceX announced through a post on X that Cursor has granted the company the right to acquire it later this year at the agreed valuation of $60 billion. Under the terms disclosed, if SpaceX does not proceed with the full acquisition, it will pay $10 billion to Cursor for their collaborative work. SpaceX framed the rationale behind the deal in ambitious terms, stating that combining Cursor’s product and its distribution reach among expert software engineers with SpaceX’s Colossus training supercomputer — equivalent to one million H100 graphics processing units — would allow the two companies to build what they described as the world’s most useful artificial intelligence models.
Cursor, developed under the parent company Anysphere, is among a cluster of Silicon Valley startups that have gained significant commercial traction by using artificial intelligence to automate coding workflows, placing it alongside names such as OpenAI and Anthropic in the race for developer adoption. The company currently claims more than one billion dollars in annualised revenue and counts millions of software developers across 50,000 enterprises among its users, including industry giants such as Nvidia, Adobe, Uber, and Shopify.
Asif, who grew up in Karachi and attended Nixor College before going on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, represented Pakistan at the International Mathematical Olympiad from 2016 to 2018. At MIT, he co-founded Anysphere with three friends, having earlier worked on an artificial intelligence-powered search engine during his time there. He is 26 years old.
Cursor’s rise has been rapid by any measure. In November 2025, it reached a valuation of $29.3 billion after raising $2.3 billion in a funding round co-led by venture capital firms Accel and Coatue, cementing its status as one of the fastest-growing artificial intelligence startups globally according to Forbes.
The news drew widespread praise within Pakistan’s technology and policy circles. Umar Saif, former federal minister for information technology, took to social media to commend Asif, calling him the kind of role model Pakistani youth needs — specifically distinguishing him from those who inherit wealth or engage in rent-seeking behaviour. Saif described Asif as a self-made individual from a middle-class family in Karachi who built something of genuine global impact.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
