The conflict between Elon Musk and OpenAI is escalating further. After Musk’s SpaceX acquired the AI tool Cursor for $60 billion, OpenAI announced that the company’s models will be removed from the service. Musk himself dismissed the announcement: “I couldn’t care less.”

Cursor has quickly become one of the most talked-about AI tools for programmers. The program can write and modify code, among other things, and uses models from several AI companies, including OpenAI and its competitor Anthropic.

In June, SpaceX announced that it was acquiring Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, for approximately $60 billion in a stock deal. The acquisition was finalized earlier in August. The change of ownership is now having consequences.

OpenAI announced on Friday that it intends to terminate its agreement to provide models directly to Cursor. The company has suggested November 12 as the end date.

Refers to Musk

OpenAI explicitly links the decision to Elon Musk and his other companies. The company states that it can no longer be certain SpaceX will use the technology in accordance with OpenAI’s terms of service. As a background, OpenAI points to previous contractual disputes with companies controlled by Musk.

The agreement with Cursor also contains a clause allowing OpenAI to terminate the collaboration within a limited period after a change of ownership.

Musk responded shortly after on X.

— I couldn’t care less, he wrote.

At the same time, he accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the company’s co-founder Greg Brockman of being unreliable and repeated his previous allegations that they took control of a project that was originally created as a non-profit organization.

Musk was himself one of OpenAI’s founders in 2015 but left the organization in 2018. Since then the conflict has grown and culminated earlier this year in Musk’s multi-billion dollar lawsuit against OpenAI. A federal jury sided against Musk.

Competitor Steps Up

The announcement does not necessarily mean that all possibilities to use OpenAI in Cursor will disappear.

OpenAI states that users can still connect their own API key to Cursor or use the company’s Codex extension. What is being phased out is the direct agreement allowing Cursor to offer OpenAI’s models through its own service.

Cursor founder Michael Truell says that discussions are still ongoing with OpenAI to try to resolve the situation.

OpenAI’s perhaps biggest competitor Anthropic, however, has responded by promising more computing capacity for its Claude models in Cursor. Anthropic already has its own collaboration with SpaceX.

As a result, the years-long personal conflict between Musk and Altman has now also become a direct battle over which AI models millions of programmers will use.