SpaceX and Cursor team up to topple Claude Code | E2279

SpaceX and Cursor team up to topple Claude Code | E2279

From This Week in Startups by Jason Calacanis

April 22, 2026 · 1h 13m · Episode 2279

About this episode

This episode discusses SpaceX's partnership with Cursor on AI models and features guests from Bitstarter and Trajectory RL.

This Week In Startups is made possible by: LinkedIn Jobs - linkedIn.com/twist Grasshopper Bank - grasshopper.bank/twist Notion - notion.com Today’s show: This week, SpaceX announced that it was partnering with AI coding startup Cursor on new AI models. xAI’s parent company is bringing compute, while Cursor brings developer market share and recent successes, training its own coding models. The deal, while interesting, comes with a steep price tag. SpaceX will pay Cursor $10 billion for their shared work, with an option to buy the entire company for $60 billion later this year. After poking our way through the deal, Chris Zacharia and Brian McRindle of Bitstarter joined Lon and Alex. Bitstarter is a ‘Kickstarter for Bittensor,’ helping founders get their subnet up and running without tripping over their shoelaces. The Bitstarter crew also broke some news on the show, telling TWIST that they have a new accelerator-ish program kicking off. Next, Ning Ren from Trajectory RL joined the program to explain how Bittensor subnet 11 is using decentralized competitions to design and release better skills . Skills — markdown files with words — have become a critical building tool in the…

People in this episode

Host: Jason Calacanis

Guests: Chris Zacharia, Brian McRindle, Ning Ren

Topics covered

  • SpaceX
  • AI coding
  • Cursor
  • Bitstarter
  • decentralized competitions
  • Bittensor
  • technology

Keywords

  • SpaceX
  • Cursor
  • AI models
  • Bitstarter
  • decentralized competitions
  • Bittensor
  • technology

Sponsors

Plaud NotePin, LinkedIn Jobs, Grasshopper Bank, Notion

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: SpaceX, Cursor, xAI, Bitstarter, Trajectory RL, Bittensor

Products: Plaud NotePin

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