Elon Musk's SpaceX sought to purchase AI coding company Cognition as part of its effort to close the gap with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in artificial intelligence, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the situation. Cognition CEO Scott Wu quickly refuted the account, stating on X that the story contained inaccuracies and that Cognition "is not for sale," noting the two firms haven't held discussions. The report arrives days after SpaceX's $60 billion purchase of Cursor, another AI coding company, which finalized last week.
SpaceX bought Musk's AI venture xAI earlier this year before going public in a major IPO in June, with its market value climbing to almost $2.3 trillion at its height. The company has pitched investors on AI goals that include eventually constructing data centers in space, though the xAI operation remains comparatively immature and has lagged rivals. It's also confronted challenges with its chatbot Grok's tendency toward scandal, including last year's "MechaHitler" episode and this year's nonconsensual sexual imagery controversies, as it attempts to attract enterprise clients. Last week, Musk informed SpaceX employees that in roughly "four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value" of the firm, but reaching that milestone will demand SpaceX generate substantially more AI revenue. This month, Cursor and SpaceX together launched Grok 4.6, a new model scoring higher on benchmarks for coding and intricate multi-step agentic tasks.
According to the report, acquiring Cognition and its coding agent Devin—alongside an enterprise client roster including Mercedes-Benz, Citi, and Goldman Sachs—would have offered SpaceX another avenue to expand its push into AI coding and vie for enterprise accounts. Bloomberg states the acquisition discussions are no longer underway, but the companies continue to explore collaboration—potentially with Cognition tapping SpaceX's computing resources, which the company is selling to other AI firms like Anthropic until it requires that capacity internally. Wu didn't specifically address this claim in his rebuttal. Cognition stands as one of the biggest independent AI software coding startups not yet absorbed by a major AI model producer. The firm in late May secured a $1 billion funding round at a $25 billion post-money valuation, and Bloomberg reports it's now in preliminary talks for fresh funding at a $40 billion valuation.
AI-assisted coding has surfaced as one of the most obvious paths to monetize the technology, with Anthropic's rapid expansion—driven largely by Claude Code—serving as evidence. Integrating Cursor was part of that strategy, and the companies were already collaborating before the deal closed. Cognition drew attention last year when it purchased the remaining holdings of rival Windsurf after Google DeepMind acqui-hired the startup's CEO and lead research in a $2.4 billion transaction for talent and licensing rights. Following the merger, Cognition dismissed 30 staff members and presented buyouts to the remaining 200 Windsurf workers, with those who opted to stay encountering rigorous operational demands like workweeks exceeding 80 hours and six office days. Such intense work culture would align with Musk's management style, given he's stated he works up to 120 hours weekly and frequently sleeps on office or factory floors. SpaceX's aggressive acquisition strategy reflects the mounting pressure to transform AI ambitions into revenue streams quickly, particularly as enterprise customers increasingly favor established coding tools with proven security and integration capabilities. The outcome of Cognition's independence—whether it remains standalone, accepts investment tied to computing partnerships, or eventually succumbs to consolidation—may signal how much runway remains for specialist AI startups before platform giants dominate every vertical.