Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Elon Musk’s SpaceX attempted to acquire AI coding startup Cognition, citing sources familiar with the matter, but Cognition CEO Scott Wu swiftly denied the story. In a post on X, Wu wrote that the report was inaccurate, that Cognition “is not for sale,” and that the two companies have not been in talks.
The report arrives just days after SpaceX closed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor, another AI coding startup, and comes amid a broader consolidation wave in the AI developer tools market. SpaceX and Cognition did not respond to requests for comment.
SpaceX’s AI push intensifies
SpaceX has been aggressively expanding its AI footprint. Earlier this year, it acquired Musk’s AI company, xAI, and then went public in a blockbuster IPO in June, with its market capitalization peaking near $2.3 trillion. The company has sold investors on a vision that includes building data centers in space, but its xAI business remains early-stage and has struggled to keep pace with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Musk told SpaceX employees last week that in about “four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value” of the company, underscoring the strategic importance of AI to SpaceX’s future. However, achieving that goal will require substantial revenue growth from AI products, and AI-assisted coding has emerged as one of the most direct monetization paths.
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Anthropic’s rapid growth, driven largely by its Claude Code tool, has demonstrated the commercial potential of AI coding assistants. Bringing Cursor into the fold was part of that equation, and the two companies were already collaborating before the acquisition closed. This month, Cursor and SpaceX jointly released Grok 4.6, a model that scores higher on benchmarks for coding and complex multi-step agentic tasks.
What Cognition would have brought
Adding Cognition and its coding agent Devin would have given SpaceX another avenue to deepen its AI coding push and compete for enterprise customers. Cognition’s client roster includes Mercedes-Benz, Citi, and Goldman Sachs, providing a strong foothold in the enterprise market.
Bloomberg reports that the deal talks are no longer active, but that the companies are still discussing potential collaboration — possibly involving Cognition using SpaceX’s computing capacity, which SpaceX is selling to other AI players like Anthropic until it needs that capacity for its own projects. Wu did not address this specific claim in his denial.
Cognition remains one of the largest independent AI software coding startups that hasn’t been acquired by a major AI model maker. The company raised a $1 billion round in late May at a $25 billion post-money valuation, and Bloomberg reports it is now in early talks for a new round of funding at a $40 billion valuation.
Cognition made headlines last year when it acquired the remaining assets of competitor Windsurf after Google DeepMind acqui-hired the startup’s CEO and top researchers in a $2.4 billion deal for talent and licensing rights. After the merger, Cognition laid off 30 employees and offered buyouts to the remaining 200 Windsurf employees. Those who stayed faced strict operational expectations, including an 80+ hour workweek and six days in the office — a wartime work ethic that would not be out of place in a Musk company, where Musk has said he works up to 120 hours a week and often sleeps on office or factory floors.
For now, the reported acquisition attempt appears to have stalled, but the broader trend is clear: AI coding tools are becoming a critical battleground in the AI industry, and major players are willing to spend billions to secure a competitive edge. Whether Cognition remains independent or eventually joins forces with a larger player will be a key story to watch in the coming months.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. The cryptocurrency and AI startup markets are volatile and uncertain; readers should conduct their own research before making any investment decisions.
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