According to the plan, Cursor's direct access to our model will be completely terminated on November 12th.
As for the next-generation strongest model Astra, it will never be given through official channels.
The reason is simple.
Your boss has a criminal record, I don't feel comfortable.
15 days ago, when Musk bought Cursor for 60 billion, everyone said the same thing—
The Cursor that belonged to global developers is dead.
Sure enough, that was just the opening act.
But Cursor isn't the most tragic. It lost GPT, but still has its own boss's Grok to rely on.
The most tragic ones are the millions of developers who open it every day, and they don't even have a say in this matter.
Seeing OpenAI end its partnership with Cursor, honestly, it's like watching two friends get divorced and then being told I have to choose who to spend the weekend with. I don't want the AI ecosystem to turn into isolated tribes; I want the best models to work together.
Developers only have 75 days left
For developers, there are three things they need to understand today.
The first is the date.
Before November 12th, GPT in Cursor remains unchanged, use it as usual. After that, official direct access is zeroed out.
Counting from today, 75 days.
The second is that the strongest Astra was never intended to be given.
It's not that it won't be given after expiration; it's that it won't be given from now on. This is OpenAI's unreleased next-generation model, also its strongest card.
The third is that two lifelines are still left.
Tibo Sottiaux, nicknamed OpenAI's "godfather," subsequently posted stating:
Developers can continue to use their own OpenAI API Key.
OpenAI's own Cursor IDE extension will also continue to provide access.
So GPT won't be physically erased from the Cursor software; what was cut off is Cursor's direct contract as an official channel.
The difference between the two is:
Before: Cursor bought models in bulk from OpenAI, packaged them into its own subscription, and sold them to you. You paid one monthly fee, which included GPT in your quota. If you exceeded it, you'd top up at Cursor's prices, and if there were issues, you'd contact Cursor.
After: You must register your own OpenAI API Key, enter it into Cursor, and pay OpenAI directly per token. The bill has nothing to do with Cursor, the quota is unrelated to your subscription, and rate limiting and stability are your own responsibility.
It changed from a monthly subscription to self-pay. For heavy users, this is a real price increase.
Just one hour after the announcement, Cursor co-founder and CEO Michael Truell urgently responded.
He said OpenAI models account for about 5% of Cursor user traffic, and the two sides are negotiating, hoping to resolve this matter.
Additionally, this move directly put OpenAI on the spot:
Cursor was one of OpenAI's earliest users. We have collaborated with their team for many years, and we have always trusted their platform to be neutral infrastructure.
Negotiations aren't finished yet, and these words were publicly released.
The calculation is made quite clearly: It's you who are not neutral, not us.
The strongest card will absolutely not be given to Musk
Actually, someone warned about this two months ago.
WIRED's article on July 2nd pointed out two possibilities:
After the acquisition is completed, SpaceX might be unwilling to hand business to Anthropic and OpenAI;
Conversely, Anthropic and OpenAI might also be unwilling to sell models through a product owned by Musk.
Two months later, the latter half came true.
OpenAI was tougher this time than anyone expected.
Because it holds Astra.
On August 7th, OpenAI proactively issued an announcement containing a sentence that made the entire security community's scalp tingle: they cannot rule out the possibility that Astra could reach a "Critical" level of cyber capability.
Translated, this means the model could find and write weapons to breach real-world infrastructure on its own.
For this reason, OpenAI has already locked Astra into an isolated testing environment, restricted network and tool access, added extra encryption to the model weights, and paused a batch of internal projects that didn't meet standards.
Such a card was never meant to be dealt casually.
Let alone when the person waiting to receive it is Musk.
The feud between Altman and Musk is well known.
In April 2023, The New York Times reported that after Musk acquired Twitter, the company violated its contract terms with OpenAI. Twitter is now part of SpaceX.
On April 30, 2026, Musk admitted under oath during testimony that xAI distilled OpenAI's data to train models, violating OpenAI's terms of service. xAI is also part of SpaceX today.
A person who has violated a contract before just bought your largest distribution channel, and you hold a model that can write zero-day vulnerabilities.
Would you give it to them if you were in their shoes?
So for Cursor users, what's lost is not just today's GPT. It's that every time OpenAI becomes stronger in the future, it will have nothing to do with you.
Can Grok fill the gap? Musk himself gave the answer.
On August 15th, the day after the deal closed, Musk expressed his concerns directly at the first all-hands Cursor meeting after the acquisition, in front of over 1,000 new employees.
Grok is not the leader in this market; it urgently needs to catch up.
It's somewhat ironic to spend 60 billion to buy the strongest AI programming tool and admit the next day that you can't replace it.
In 90 days, the AI programming table has been cleared
What's even scarier isn't just Cursor alone.
Arranging the major events in the AI programming circle over the past two years in chronological order reveals the same thing happening repeatedly.
June 2025: Anthropic cuts off Windsurf's Claude access.
August 2025: Anthropic revokes OpenAI's own Claude access.
January 2026: Anthropic blocks xAI. During the same period, the Claude consumer subscription integration in Cursor stops working.
February 2026: SpaceX swallows up the entire xAI, merging it into SpaceXAI.
August 14, 2026: Cursor belongs to Musk.
August 29, 2026: OpenAI cuts off supply to Cursor.
Four years ago, Cursor proved one thing: You don't need to own a model to build a multi-billion dollar company.
Today, the second half of that sentence has been completed—if you don't own a model, you don't have decision-making power.
Acquisitions, blockades, shutdowns appear alternately, with intervals getting shorter.
Cursor's annual revenue is $3-4 billion, with over half of the Fortune 500 using it. A player of this size, cut off just like that.
November 12th.
Remember this date.
References:
https://openai.com/index/our-decision-on-cursor-following-its-acquisition-by-spacex/
Editor: Moses
This article is from the WeChat public account "Xinzhiyuan," author: ASI Revelation
