Following Musk's acquisition: OpenAI blocks Cursor
OpenAI has announced the termination of its contract with the code-writing tool Cursor following its acquisition by SpaceX. The company cites concerns over potential violations of terms of use.
iOS vs. Android, PlayStation vs. Xbox, AWS vs. Azure. There is no shortage of rivalries in the tech world, but it seems there is no rivalry hotter than that of OpenAI. It has everything: big money, technology, a struggle for talent, and, above all, a lot of personal friction between Sam Altman and Elon Musk. The former partners do not stop bickering at every opportunity, and now Altman is trying to hurt Musk indirectly through his new acquisition, which will likely affect users as well.
Distrusting Musk's companies
This past weekend, OpenAI published a post on its blog announcing an unusual decision: "Today, we notified SpaceX that we plan to cancel our contract, which grants Cursor access to OpenAI's models."
As you may recall, last June, SpaceX announced it was acquiring Cursor for 60 billion dollars. As a result, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and its controlling shareholder, now owns the popular code-writing tool.
"The decision was difficult, as we want our models to be available to developers, — explained OpenAI. — But we made this decision because we cannot be sure that SpaceX will use our technology according to the terms of use, based on our experiences with other companies of Elon Musk that violated our contracts."
According to OpenAI, the company X (formerly Twitter) has already violated terms of use and its contract with OpenAI in the past, a fact Musk admitted under oath in court.
"We have worked with Cursor for almost 4 years, and we have great respect for the team, the product, and what they have built for the development community," concluded OpenAI, noting that the contract with Cursor allows them to terminate the engagement in the event of a change in the core control of Cursor. Starting November 12, Cursor will no longer receive access to current and future models, giving users time to prepare.
