SpaceXAI, Cursor unveil Grok AI model for legal, finance tasks

SpaceXAI has unveiled a new artificial intelligence model built in partnership with AI coding startup Cursor that’s meant to be more adept at finance, legal and coding tasks, in a bid by Elon Musk’s firm to gain ground on rivals like Anthropic PBC and OpenAI.

The software, called Grok 4.5, marks the first joint AI model developed by the two companies and comes just weeks after SpaceX formally agreed to acquire Cursor in a deal that values the startup at $60 billion.

The new model is designed to “handle difficult, long-running tasks,” according to a blog post Wednesday, including for software engineering, a key area of focus for many top AI developers.

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But unlike Cursor’s prior models, Grok 4.5 is aimed at tackling a wider mix of work, such as legal and financial services. Grok 4.5 also has increased cybersecurity capabilities, the blog post said.

The work with Cursor is part of a broader effort by Musk’s company to catch up in the AI race and attract more business customers. Musk said earlier this year that his AI startup, known as xAI before it merged with SpaceX, had fallen behind on coding, prompting a wave of staffing changes to rebuild the venture. SpaceXAI, as the AI outfit is now known, released its first coding agent in May to compete with Anthropic’s offerings.

Ahead of its long-awaited initial public offering, SpaceX announced that it had an agreement giving it the right to buy Cursor, one of the fastest-growing startups ever and a central player in the so-called vibe coding era. The two companies later began collaborating on a new model by sharing data and computing resources.

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Musk’s company has also been trying to focus on finance work to gain clients on Wall Street, Bloomberg has reported, in a further attempt to bolster revenue.

The Grok 4.5 release coincides with a period of heightened government scrutiny of new models, particularly for cybersecurity capabilities. The Trump administration briefly imposed foreign access restrictions on Anthropic’s most capable models and asked OpenAI to stagger its newest offering. Both firms have since said they’ve received a green light to move forward with their releases.

In the blog post, Cursor said it has taken steps to “detect and block bad actors.” The company said its goal is to “preserve legitimate security work, including finding and patching vulnerabilities, while restricting the workflows most likely to cause harm."

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