SpaceX's Acquisition Bid for AI Coding Startup Cognition Denied

According to Bloomberg's reporting, Elon Musk's SpaceX made an effort to buy Cognition, an AI-powered coding platform, as part of its broader push to compete with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in artificial intelligence. However, Cognition's leadership quickly disputed the account, with CEO Scott Wu taking to X to state that the company "is not for sale" and that no substantive negotiations had taken place between the two firms.

SpaceX's Recent AI Shopping Spree#

The acquisition attempt comes on the heels of SpaceX's $60 billion purchase of Cursor, another prominent AI coding venture, which officially wrapped up last week. Earlier in the year, SpaceX absorbed Musk's own xAI business and subsequently took the combined entity public in a blockbuster June initial public offering, which valued the company at close to $2.3 trillion at its peak.

Building Out AI Capabilities#

SpaceX has positioned itself as a serious AI contender by pitching investors on ambitious plans, including the development of orbital data centers. Yet the xAI division remains relatively nascent and trails behind established competitors. The division's chatbot, Grok, has drawn criticism for producing controversial and inappropriate content, including antisemitic and sexual imagery incidents, which has complicated efforts to attract enterprise clients.

Following the Cursor acquisition, SpaceX and Cursor released Grok 4.6 this month—a model that demonstrates improved performance on coding tasks and complex multi-step agentic operations.

Why Cognition Matters#

Adding Cognition to the fold would have given SpaceX access to Devin, an advanced coding agent, as well as a customer roster featuring major names like Mercedes-Benz, Citi, and Goldman Sachs. Bloomberg notes that although acquisition talks have stalled, the companies may still explore partnership arrangements—potentially involving Cognition tapping into SpaceX's computing infrastructure.

Cognition stands as one of the few remaining independent AI software coding startups not already owned by a major AI model developer. The company raised $1 billion at a $25 billion valuation in late May, and is now in preliminary discussions for additional funding at a reported $40 billion valuation.