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Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX

https://openai.com/index/our-decision-on-cursor-following-its-acquisition-by-spacex/
126•meetpateltech•1h ago

Comments

throwitaway222•1h ago
Makes sense.
demibabs•1h ago
Wow, I don’t use cursor but that seems pretty bad for them.

Is there a way to work around this (like using your OpenAI limits directly?)

charrondev•1h ago
I used cursor extensively both at work and for personal use. Its harness is pretty darn good but I basically never used OpenAI models in it.

The first party cursor models (initially composer and now grok-cursor) and price very competitively for their quality and have very generous usage limits included in the base plans, and then per token pricing afterwards.

Occasionally I’ve used some of the Anthropic models in it but found their cost massively outweighed the benefits for the type of usage we do.

I was using Sonnet 4.5 and 4.6 for a while but the newer models are a lot more expensive at the per-token pricing.

auscompgeek•35m ago
Cursor does currently allow users to BYO OpenAI token. Given Cursor won't have access to OpenAI models for prompt engineering/evals though, there's definitely a question of whether they'd allow picking any new OpenAI models, assuming the BYOK option continues to exist at all.
Jcampuzano2•1h ago
It was honestly just a matter of time, given all of the bad blood there is between Sam and Elon and Elon basically admitting under oath they were distilling other companies models.

I wonder if Anthropic will follow suit given their campaign against distillation or if they'll stay quiet given their reliance on SpaceX (among others) for hardware.

Y0s•1h ago
So Astra release Friday 13th November!?
Jcampuzano2•1h ago
The way I read the article was that they will continue providing their current models, but won't let them use any newer ones announced even between now and the end date. But I might be wrong.

> we’ve decided to hold the contract cancellation to the latest date we can while not providing future models to Cursor.

bentt•1h ago
While this isn't great for users it seems like a pretty standard circling of the wagons in preparation for the next phase in the battle for frontier AI dominance.

Ironically, as a Cursor and Claude subscriber, but not an OpenAI subscriber, this will push me back to Anthropic. I don't feel good about giving OpenAI money directly, but I've found switching to GPT 5.6 Sol now and again in Cursor to be useful. Now I'll probably just forget about OpenAI models.

reilly3000•21m ago
I think they are betting that Astra will be impossible to ignore.
SoftTalker•5m ago
For three months, until the next SOTA model drops. And with each improved model, the number of people who actually need it declines.
ronsor•4m ago
Exactly. Astra will likely get its Mythos moment, and then another Chinese lab releases its equivalent three months later while Anthropic releases a newer, better model.
redox99•1h ago
It's always been clear to me that Cursor's business model of reselling others' APIs had its days numbered. Not necessarily because the providers would pull the plug, but because you wouldn't be able to compete with subsidized plans.

Cursor is already kind of useless for third party models unless you're willing to spend thousands of dollars. It's only worth it if you're going to use mostly grok/composer.

echelon•32m ago
Alternate take: open source models and model routers are the real bang for your buck. Subsidized plan or not.
nab•8m ago
Agreed. Wrapping token spend is great for pumping your revenue numbers (congrats to them on $60B!), but doesn’t seem sustainable over the long term.

Big reason we built boxes.dev around the model harnesses (Codex + Claude Code), so you can bring your own subscriptions.

satvikpendem•56m ago
If you have such a world changing technology, why sell an API when you can capture all the value yourself? That's what every provider is asking themselves.

Cursor will be fine after this, as they have their own first party models and can potentially use open weight models via API or their own hardware, which have gotten good enough to Opus and Fable quality now for many use cases.

closetheloopdev•56m ago
> 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.

This move seems to protect Astra against distillation. I wonder whether Astra will be released before or after 11/12.

ananmays•51m ago
> 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.

I think Sam Altman has played a clever business move here, they can use this excuse immediately after the Hugging Face leaks and it's not going to be dismissed willy-nilly. Whereas long term they probably wanted to end their partnership with Cursor anyway. I bet Dario will be happy about this too, but maybe the compute deal prevents him from doing similar anytime soon.

Very interesting times we live in...

semiquaver•41m ago
Is it really an excuse? As the release points out, musk admitted under oath to distilling OpenAI’s models to produce xai models on an ongoing basis. Whatever you think about goose for the gander wrt IP theft, I wouldn’t voluntarily do business with a competitor who was actively and brazenly flouting my terms, would you?
__initbrian__•46m ago
they’ll see an uptick in codex user count trying the new models and can build a narrative around that too
AnonHP•43m ago
My guess is that OpenAI now has a full blown Cursor equivalent in development (an expansion of Codex?) and will announce it in September. Otherwise it stands to lose those who are used to working with Cursor.
noodletheworld•42m ago
Days until cursor announces open models… 3, 2, 1…

Seriously though, when the api providers start blacklisting cursor and they’re forced to swap to open weight models…

If that happens, what even is the difference between openrouter and cursor?

alphabettsy•26m ago
They already have open models.

https://cursor.com/docs/models-and-pricing

skeledrew•25m ago
Well, one has a pretty popular harness.
alberth•2m ago
You assume OpenAI doesn’t turn off access to OpenRouter too.

Strategically, OpenAI long-term will want to own the direct relationship with all their customers. As will most major AI labs.

dgrin91•40m ago
Not surprised, but honestly I don't feel like this is a huge loss for cursor. Models are so commoditized, and 99% of users don't need particularly fancy models. Between existing anthropic models, composer-2, honestly even grok models, and also the fact that many people just use 'auto' mode, I feel like many won't feel the impact for OpenAI's withdrawal.

Maybe if Claude joined along it would be more impactful. For better or worse though, Xai seems like its lining themselves up to handle being on their own for cursor.

skeledrew•33m ago
> 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.

> After Musk acquired Twitter, now part of SpaceX, the company broke (opens in a new window) the terms of our contract (alongside many others).

I have never seen one large company throw another large company under the bus without any legalese filters like this before. Wondering if OpenAI site got pwned. Or maybe we in some strange, alternative reality. I doubt even their LLMs would be this frank.

the_real_cher•32m ago
Sam and Elon have a long standing feud. This is more than just bad blood between companies.
skeledrew•21m ago
Still, where's the legalese? I'd expect something like this on an individual's blog, not a company's.
gexla•31m ago
I don't see how it makes sense to use models outside of Grok or Composer in cursor unless you like the tooling to such degree that you're willing to pay out the nose for access to OpenAI and Anthropic to use with that tooling. And Codex is regularly scoring towards the top among harnesses, so you might as well use the best harness available for the given model. I'm happy with Grok and Composer in Cursor. If Cursor wants to add more models, they should host more open models.
herrvogel-•23m ago
Is there a good place for harness comparison/scoring?
reilly3000•17m ago
https://www.harness-bench.ai/leaderboard.html

This provides a method, but the data looks stale and perhaps a bit thin compared to say, Cursor, or even AntiGravity data.

alainchabat•12m ago
never heard of nanobot. how reliable is this benchmark?
Philpax•29m ago
Honestly, can't say I miss my Cursor subscription at all, and I'm surprised they're still a going concern. Why would I want to use a proprietary VSCode fork with an identity crisis when I can use literally any editor with any agent and have about the same experience?
bix6•27m ago
Why would they give the maximum time instead of the minimum given violation has already occurred?
thoughtpeddler•27m ago
Spend a lot of time thinking about why individuals shouldn't trust large AI cos, now it's interesting getting to think about how the AI companies themselves don't trust each other. Capitalism is viciously cold and uncaring.
gnarlouse•3m ago
At least capitalism isn't at the center of the most impactful technological revolution in human history.
pinkmuffinere•25m ago
> 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.

Do I smell a cursor-analogue from openAI?

rgbrenner•21m ago
Anthropic already banned xAI for very similar ToS violations earlier this year: https://x.com/kyliebytes/status/2009686466746822731?s=46

So this is OpenAI following suit after Musk admitted to distilling their models.

This was bound to happen once Cursor decided to sell itself to a competing model provider.

It'll be interesting to see if Anthropic applies their ban to Cursor, or if that datacenter deal they signed with Musk changes anything.

frankacter•3m ago
Your link doesn't suggest a violation of TOS, but rather a policy shift disallowing their major competitors to use their model for any use.

That thread you linked suggested they were using it with cursor as part of their development process, not for distilling.

>"Hi team, I believe many of you have already discovered that anthropic models are not responding on cursor. According to cursor this is a new policy anthropic is enforcing for all its major competitors."

redox99•2m ago
> if that datacenter deal they signed with Musk changes anything

It's hard to imagine a 1B / month deal wouldn't.

iJohnDoe•15m ago
I guess I’m on the right track.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49428835

If Claude pulls away from Cursor as well then Cursor is basically done.

simontlbt•1m ago
OpenAI / Sam Altman is probably even shadier than musk

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Our decision on Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX

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