Musk Admits Grok Lags Behind Competitors After Cursor Acquisition

Dynamic AI Briefing: According to The Information, citing five sources, on the day SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor, Musk delivered his first address to all Cursor employees. He openly acknowledged that Grok lags behind competitors and said he “is not used to losing,” urging Cursor to help SpaceX AI close the gap as quickly as possible. Musk also unusually praised his rivals, stating that Anthropic is currently leading in AI and is a formidable competitor. He further argued that AI will eventually become so powerful that humans cannot control it, making it essential for SpaceX AI to develop the technology before other companies do. After the acquisition, Cursor did not continue operating independently; employees have begun integrating into various SpaceX AI teams. Cursor CEO Michael Truell now reports directly to Musk, and both co-founders have joined the pre-training and machine learning teams. Cursor’s official statement previously confirmed the acquisition and stated that both parties would jointly advance products like Grok and Cursor. This is not the first time Musk has admitted xAI is falling behind—in March, he publicly stated that xAI “got it wrong the first time” and needed to rebuild from the ground up. Although the latest Grok 4.6 has clearly closed the gap with OpenAI and Anthropic in some public benchmarks, this internal speech reveals that Musk still doesn’t believe he’s caught up.