26-Year-Old Pakistani Becomes Billionaire with Cursor AI Startup

SpaceX said it has secured an option to either acquire code-generation startup Cursor, an AI code-generation startup co-founded by Pakistani-born Sualeh Asif, for $60 billion later this year, or pay $10 billion for their new partnership, as it pushes deeper into the lucrative market for AI developer tools.

Along with OpenAI and Anthropic, Cursor is one of several Silicon Valley startups that have drawn waves of developers by using artificial intelligence to automate coding, a business where AI companies have found early commercial traction.

The deal could give xAI, the Grok chatbot maker that SpaceX merged with in February, a stronger foothold in the AI coding market where it has so far lagged rivals. It also provides Cursor with more computing capacity to develop AI models.

“The combination of Cursor’s leading product and distribution to expert software engineers with SpaceX’s million H100 equivalent Colossus training supercomputer will allow us to build the world’s most useful models,” SpaceX said in an X post on Tuesday.

“Cursor has also given SpaceX the right to acquire Cursor later this year for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for our work together.”

Colossus is xAI’s supercomputer cluster in Memphis, which it has described as one of the largest in the world. The company has been spending billions of dollars on AI infrastructure.

According to Forbes, Sualeh Asif, originally from Karachi, cofounded Cursor with three friends from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Asif, with a net worth of $1.3 billion, represented Pakistan in the International Math Olympiad from 2016 to 2018.

As per the report, Cursor reached a $29.3 billion valuation in November 2025 after raising $2.3 billion. The startup claims to have more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

“This is a profoundly proud moment for Pakistan, and undeniable proof for our youth that there is no ceiling to what they can achieve,” said Bilal bin Saqib, Chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.

Saqib added that talent has never been Pakistan’s problem. “What we lack is the ecosystem to support them locally,” he said.

He said Sualeh’s success should inspire pride and strong belief among young Pakistanis.

“We don’t lack brilliant minds; we lack the right conditions. With the right policy, capital, and leadership that treats our youth as our greatest asset, this is a fully solvable problem,” he said.

The era of AI billionaires is upon us!

A 26 year old Pakistani, Sualeh, just co-founded a company that SpaceX is reportedly considering buying for $60 billion.

This is a profoundly proud moment for Pakistan, and undeniable proof for our youth that there is no ceiling to what… pic.twitter.com/QXZxjPh8QO

— Bilal bin Saqib MBE (@Bilalbinsaqib) April 23, 2026

Meanwhile, the announcement comes ahead of SpaceX’s expected public debut in the coming months. The company is aiming for a valuation of around $1.75 trillion and planning a $75 billion fundraising, which could become one of the biggest IPOs in history.

Two product engineering heads at Cursor, Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg, said in March that they joined SpaceX to work on lunar projects and xAI, the AI startup linked with Elon Musk.

Musk welcomed the engineers, saying, “Orbital space centres and mass drivers on the Moon will be incredible.”