SpaceX’s stunning IPO pop has driven Elon Musk’s net worth to astronomical levels. It’s also given him an extraordinary business tool: a supercurrency for mergers and acquisitions.
Musk demonstrated the power of that currency on Tuesday when SpaceX announced its acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion in stock. Some say the deal may be the largest ever acquisition of a venture-backed startup. While SpaceX and Cursor had announced a deal in April that gave SpaceX a call option to buy the startup after the IPO for $60 billion in stock, Wall Street’s appetite for SpaceX stock has transformed the economics of the deal for Musk.
