This valuation is absurd. Perhaps a year ago- sure, but there have been so many iterations of this “kind of editor” since then, not to mention countless alternatives.
So for me it’s more of a data deal - Elon buying himself some insight into codebases and real dev usage patterns? Oh finally someone to use his dirty data centres
I've been using Kilo Code (VS Code Plugin) for the last few days, and it does most of what I liked in Cursor without tying me to their particular subscription.
That said, people are increasingly migrating to CLI tools (Claude Code if you like the Claude models, Pi Agent if you want something that's highly customizable, Crush if you want something fun), or GUI tools that are less code-first (Codex GUI).
It has a CLI component and a very flashy TUI application. The TUI has lots of effort put in to layouts, color, and really pushing the boundaries of what a TUI can be. It looks a bit “hacker in a 2000s movie” except with pink instead of green as the dominant color.
Totally not for everybody though. I can see why some people would hate it.
That' all well and good and they had astounding growth rates but doesn't mean much. And 1B in ARR is not _that_ much in comparison.
Also, reportedly they spend all their revenue and they have no control over the spend-side. The models they use will very likely get much more expensive. All the foundation model companies have a competing product.
Cursor has the first mover advantage, but that will only help then so much. There have been plenty companies who grew fast, had huge revenue, but failed in the end, because they never got profitable. That's also in the cards for Cursor, if they don't fundamentally change their business model
Put 1B into a better product and 10B into marketing. If you can’t beat their 1B in revenue, the market for making your money back on the Cursor acquisition also isn’t there.
So for me it’s more of a data deal - Elon buying himself some insight into codebases and real dev usage patterns? Oh finally someone to use his dirty data centres