Did SpaceX Try to Buy an AI Coding Startup? The CEO Says No

The report and the denial

A Bloomberg report claimed that SpaceX had tried to acquire Cognition, a startup known for its AI coding assistant called Devin, as part of a broader SpaceX effort to compete with major AI players like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Cognition's CEO quickly responded publicly, stating flatly that the company is "not for sale" and that no talks between the two companies had actually taken place.

Why the rumor made sense

It's not a random guess — SpaceX has been expanding aggressively into AI lately. The company already owns AI firm xAI (maker of the Grok chatbot) and last week completed a massive $60 billion acquisition of another AI coding startup, Cursor. SpaceX has also floated bold ideas like building data centers in space, and is now a publicly traded company that at its peak was worth nearly $2.3 trillion. Given all that, it wouldn't have been a big surprise if it had scooped up another AI coding company.

Where things actually stand now

According to the same report, a full acquisition is not currently being discussed, but the two companies might still be exploring some kind of partnership — for example, Cognition using SpaceX's computing power for its own AI systems. Cognition itself is one of the largest AI coding startups not yet acquired by a bigger player; it raised $1 billion earlier this year at a $25 billion valuation and is reportedly already in talks for new funding at an even higher valuation of $40 billion, with major clients such as Mercedes-Benz, Citi, and Goldman Sachs already using its Devin coding agent.