Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

721–730 of 1001 posts

Re: SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B

#721

Post by arglebarnacle »

kensai wrote: post #718
01100011 wrote: post #421

I stopped using Cursor when I started getting comfortable with Codex/Claude. Cursor is just annoying with the constant popups and it's just not as good. Now my workflow is to use my normal editor, add a todo describing what I want, and then ask Codex+gpt-5.5 to implement it. It absolutely nails it. Using codex is so much more like working with a partner vs the noise and annoyance of Cursor. That said, I think we're i…

"Prompt "engineering" and working around your tools will be over in a year or so." What do you mean by that? What is happening in just over a year or so?

The models are getting better at agentic coding, so over time using complicated harnesses and precise prompt engineering to attempt to squeeze out an extra X% performance will become irrelevant as the models approach expert-level performance. The bitter lesson in miniature.

Re: SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B

#722

Post by ChrisLTD »

jw1224 wrote: post #491
devin wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you saying is going to be over in a year or so?

Not OP, but I generally agree. Models are powerful enough now to reliably instruct other models. They don’t need fancy tools or IDEs, just the command line. With deterministic workflows, type-safe languages and test suites, agentic loops pretty much “can’t fail”. They will continue until the types resolve, the tests pass, and the project requirements are deterministically met. By that point it’s literally just a case…

"project requirements are deterministically met" makes it sound so easy

Re: SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B

#723

Post by joering2 »

mikeryan wrote: post #434
Alifatisk wrote: post #422

A space company is buying an IDE for roughly the cost to build 150 of world's most expensive modern hospitals [1]. How is this in SpaceX's interest? Isn't it kinda bizarre that Elon is pivoting SpaceX to something else? 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/16/spacex-spcx-cursor-acquisiti...

It’s all in a stock that may very well be near its zenith when this closes (or maybe not. This is so far past fundamentals it’s impossible to tell). They’re spending Monopoly money. It also seems like SpaceX is poised to Hoover up all of Elons companies so it’s might not be “just a space company” for long.

> It’s all in a stock that may very well be near its zenith when this closes

No, it is not. This is not legal or financial advice, but I believe the stock could easily rise 2.5x - not because of its current or future financial condition, but because it is run by what may be the most skilled fraudster our planet has ever breed. Charles Ponzi himself couldn't have pulled this off. While most CEOs are careful about what they publicly say or "predict," Musk's companies are fueled by increasingly fantastical projections. The consequences have amounted to some $1.5 million in SEC fines that, relative to the value created, were negligible - and that was under the previous administration. The current one won't be any more aggressive. The closest comparison I can think of is Trevor Milton and his famous "electric" truck that was filmed rolling downhill under its own momentum. He went to prison for that, although he was later pardoned by Trump. Many people have lost fortunes betting against Tesla based on fundamentals. SpaceX's shareholder list includes so many influential and powerful names, including people closely connected to the current administration, that I find it hard to imagine the stock being allowed to fail in any meaningful percentage. Obviously I'm exaggerating when I say the government would send agents door-to-door to collect valuables from American households to plug any hole in the balance sheet before allowing the stock to fall significantly. But that's honestly closer to how protected I think the company is than what traditional financial analysis would suggest. I'm nobody special, just someone with about $1.8 million in a stock portfolio. Yet this thing called SpaceX stock gives ordinary investors like me a chance to ride alongside the biggest players on their way to even larger fortunes. They are guaranteed not to lose money, and to me its not personal.

Re: SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B

#724

Post by notnullorvoid »

joshuastuden wrote: post #512
drewda wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The total addressable market (TAM) for SpaceX is finite. There are only so many nation-states and large corporations that want to launch payloads into orbit. And even if their internet service provider is uniquely capable for now, it only fills a strategic need for certain customers. So instead, Musk and Co. need to find bubbling market trends that look like they will have huge gigantic TAMs to justify the potential…

SpaceX also wants to put data centers in space. That's the big market for SpaceX and how it ties into AI.

It's much more likely SpaceX will continue building more ground data centers and using their sat relays to make global connection faster than ground connections can allow.

Re: SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B

#725

Post by hibikir »

embedding-shape wrote: post #713
ghshephard wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use cursor 8+ hours/day at work, and have full (and effectively unlimited) access to Claude Code and Codex - tools which I also use personally. I suspect that your "constant popups" were when you were using the editor - a mode that I'll confess I haven't touched in 3+ months. Workflow in Cursor is actually awesome - I'm a little outdated in how I use it - I still establish goals/objectives, rather than managing the…

> there isn't really any "prompt engineering" involved You should make an experiment; take someone who never used any LLMs or agents, and tell them to use it for the first time in front of you, and tell them to build something like a calculator program or whatnot. Bonus points if they're ICs or at least not-managers. I think there is a lot us engineers take for granted, when it comes to communicating via text, how to…

You don't even have to go outside engineers. I have teammates that get very little out of Claude Code because the way they integrate their own knowledge doesn't allow them to think of what Claude might not know. They'd say a task was impossible with the tooling, and I'd get instant answers, because I understand what is weird internal business logic sitting 6 repos away, and what is knowledge claude has by default. I can commit Claude.md files for them, but I have to include EVERYTHING, because otherwise they'll let Claude make assumptions and waste minutes, if not hours.

It's a big part of what, in my experience, is separating the very good engineer from the iffy one: Do you have a good mental model, and can you put yourself in the shoes of people sitting in a different mental model? It makes you a better dev, and even more so when it comes to AI tools, which have their own kind of alien brain.

Re: SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B

#726

Post by rob74 »

01100011 wrote: post #421

I stopped using Cursor when I started getting comfortable with Codex/Claude. Cursor is just annoying with the constant popups and it's just not as good. Now my workflow is to use my normal editor, add a todo describing what I want, and then ask Codex+gpt-5.5 to implement it. It absolutely nails it. Using codex is so much more like working with a partner vs the noise and annoyance of Cursor. That said, I think we're i…

It is possible to use Cursor via ACP, so you can use it in any editor that supports ACP (notably the JetBrains IDEs). Our company went all in with Cursor and at the same time centrally disabled the AI functionality of JetBrains IDEs, but a pretty large group of developers (me included) were so vocal about wanting to continue to use our "old" IDEs that IT eventually relented and enabled the plugins needed to support Cursor.

Re: SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B

#727

Post by legulere »

Alifatisk wrote: post #422

A space company is buying an IDE for roughly the cost to build 150 of world's most expensive modern hospitals [1]. How is this in SpaceX's interest? Isn't it kinda bizarre that Elon is pivoting SpaceX to something else? 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/16/spacex-spcx-cursor-acquisiti...

Part of Elon Musks strategy seems to sell some kind of hype that does not materialise or at least won't for long (Mars, autonomous Cars) The vast amounts of money collected are then used to develop products that are still a significant progress in its market. Now AI is where all the hype is. It's difficult to sell some hype without AI currently.

Re: SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B

#729

Post by dgellow »

ursuscamp wrote: post #683
Alifatisk wrote: post #422

A space company is buying an IDE for roughly the cost to build 150 of world's most expensive modern hospitals [1]. How is this in SpaceX's interest? Isn't it kinda bizarre that Elon is pivoting SpaceX to something else? 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/16/spacex-spcx-cursor-acquisiti...

SpaceX is planning to do data centers in orbit. Engineering issues aside, that might dovetail with Cursor nicely if timings work out.

I cannot believe full grown adult are taking that seriously

Re: SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B

#730

Post by not_a_bot_4sho »

davebren wrote: post #680

> "In its IPO filing, the company had said Cursor's access to developers' data, including coding requests and design decisions, could help improve its AI models such as Grok." They're all stealing your IP and selling it back to your competitors in the form of tokens.

No one is stealing anything here.

Cursor users are willfully providing it by using their product. Not unlike uploading a personal photo or video to social media -- that's not yours anymore. You gave all rights away when you put it on their servers.

Post reply on HN