SpaceX’ surging stock paid for the $60 billion Cursor acquisition in just a few hours of trading—and it reveals Elon Musk’s new power

Space X’s stunning IPO pop has driven Elon Musk’s net worth to astronomical levels. It’s also given him an extraordinary business tool: a supercurrency for mergers and acquisitions. Musk demonstrated the power of that currency on Tuesday when Space X announced its acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion in stock. Some say the deal may be the largest ever acquisition of a venture-backed startup. While Space X and Cursor had announced a deal in April that gave Space X a call option to buy the startup after the IPO for $60 billion in stock, Wall Street’s appetite for SpaceX stock has transformed the economics of the deal for Musk. In theory, the deal has cost Musk almost nothing. SpaceX is paying for Cursor entirely in stock—and that stock has appreciated by several times the initial price of the deal. SpaceX opened at $135 per share on June 12 and closed Monday at $192.46, giving SpaceX a market cap of $2.51 trillion—up roughly $740 billion from its IPO valuation in less than four trading days. The $60 billion Cursor acquisition represents less than a tenth of that gain. In fact, SpaceX’s stock appreciated by the entire cost of Cursor in a matter of hours on its first day of trading. “The IPO gave SpaceX a valuation and a premium currency,” Franco Granda, Senior Analyst at Pitchbook who covers SpaceX told Fortune over email. “Signing a $60 billion all-stock deal four days after listing, with the stock up more than 50% from the offer price, shows the playbook. SpaceX can now buy a company that size without touching cash, debt, or IPO proceeds, and the higher the stock runs, the cheaper the deal feels.” What’s more, Granda said, SpaceX’s dual-class structure, in which Musk controls nearly all the votes, “removes the last bit of friction,” allowing SpaceX to “move at a speed no normal large-cap acquirer can.” SpaceX raised $86.2 billion after exercising its greenshoe option to purchase additional shares—the largest IPO ever—givin