Cursor had options beyond SpaceX

Driving the news: Elon Musk had been eyeing Cursor since at least last year, when the company's valuation had surged to $29.3 billion by November from $9.9 billion early in the year.

• Microsoft also eyed the company, according to CNBC, but ultimately did not make an offer.

The big picture: Though considered a killer app for AI usage, coding has become increasingly difficult and expensive for standalone companies.

• Cursor has been working on its own model to try and stave off some of the competition — which is expensive and requires large amounts of compute.
• The difficulty in obtaining compute makes combining with a hyperscaler very attractive.

What we're watching: Musk has showed up in more than one M&A rumor in recent weeks.

• Tesla said in its earnings on Thursday that it had acquired an unnamed $2 billion AI hardware company using stock and equity awards.