Kirkland & Ellis lawyers are guiding artificial intelligence company Cursor in a potential deal to be acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion later this year. Gibson Dunn is steering SpaceX through the transaction.
The deal was announced in a post on X, saying the companies are working together to “create the world’s best coding and knowledge work AI.” If SpaceX does not purchase the AI startup, it will pay a $10 billion fee.
Gibson Dunn’s team is led by M&A co-chairs George Sampas and Robert Little, according to a firm statement.
Kirkland’s team includes M&A partners Sarkis Jebejian, Keri Schick Norton and Steven Choi, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss deal arrangements.
Sampas and Little previously guided SpaceX in its combination with xAI, which received legal advice from Sullivan & Cromwell. The transaction valued the company at $1.25 trillion. SpaceX is still expected to go public in an IPO targeting a $2 trillion valuation later this year.
Cursor’s AI assistant, which was launched in 2023, helps programmers efficiently write and debug code. SpaceX could provide it with the data center capacity it needs to keep up with its computing needs. Cursor’s investors include Nvidia Corp., Google, OpenAI’s venture fund and Andreessen Horowitz.
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