Elon Musk’s SpaceX has overtaken Amazon to become the world’s fifth most valuable company, just days after its stock market debut. The milestone came as the company’s shares soared more than 14% on Tuesday, briefly lifting its valuation to $2.97tn – leaping past Amazon’s $2.65tn and even Microsoft before easing back to end the day at $2.66tn, still ahead of the e-commerce giant.
The surge was fuelled by news that SpaceX had agreed to buy the startup behind the AI-powered coding app Cursor for $60bn (£44bn). The acquisition, of the San Francisco-based Anysphere, is intended to capitalise on the success of AI coding tools. SpaceX is the parent of Musk’s AI business, xAI, which will gain access to Cursor’s more than 1 million users. “Owning the tool that professional developers already trust daily is a faster path to enterprise AI,” said Harrison Rolfes, an analyst at PitchBook, though he warned the deal would not “close the gap” between xAI’s models and those of rivals Anthropic and OpenAI.
“SpaceX surpassed Amazon in market value days after its IPO and $60bn AI acquisition.”
SpaceX floated at $135 a share on Friday, and its shares have risen by approximately 50% since, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire with a fortune of $1.1tn, according to Forbes. The company lost $4.9bn in 2025 on revenues of $18.7bn, while Amazon posted revenues of $717bn and net income of $78bn. Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman noted that the strong stock value would require fewer company shares to pull off large acquisitions such as Anysphere.
The group also includes the SpaceX rocket company, social media platform X, and satellite maker Starlink – the only profitable part of the business. With its new market position, SpaceX now faces the challenge of justifying its valuation against far larger profits from established tech giants.