25-Year-Old MIT Alum Aman Sanger Becomes AI Billionaire with Cursor's $60 Billion SpaceX Acquisition

At just 25, Aman Sanger has gone from an MIT student and squash enthusiast to one of the youngest billionaires in the AI industry, thanks to the meteoric rise of AI coding startup Cursor and its $60 billion acquisition by SpaceX.

SpaceX announced this week that it would acquire Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, in an all-stock deal valued at $60 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026. It is among the largest acquisitions ever involving a venture-backed technology startup.

The deal is set to transform the fortunes of Cursor's four young co-founders, including Indian-American entrepreneur Aman Sanger. According to estimates cited by Forbes, the acquisition could double the wealth of the company's founders, with each expected to be worth around $2.7 billion once the transaction is completed.

Sanger co-founded Cursor in 2022 alongside fellow MIT students Michael Truell, Sualeh Asif and Arvid Lunnemark. What began as a startup project has grown into one of the most successful AI companies in Silicon Valley. Today, Cursor's AI-powered coding tool is used by millions of software developers across roughly 50,000 companies, including major names such as Nvidia, Adobe, Uber, Shopify and PayPal. The company says it has surpassed $1 billion in annualised revenue, making it one of the fastest-growing firms in the AI sector.

Personal and family life

Aman was born to Indian immigrant parents in US. He grew up in a household where education, entrepreneurship and professional achievement were strongly encouraged. His father, Arvind Sanger, graduated from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay before moving to US and later founding Geosphere Capital, an investment firm focused on natural resources, industrial sectors and Indian equities. His mother, Shilpa Sanger, was raised in Mumbai and built a career that spans healthcare, entrepreneurship and startup investing. Trained as an orthodontist, she also became an entrepreneur and angel investor. Those influences played a major role in shaping Sanger's ambitions.

He began coding at the age of 14 and later enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied computer science between 2018 and 2022. Outside academics, Sanger played squash and remained active in university athletics throughout his time at MIT. Before launching Cursor, he gained experience through internships at Google and Bridgewater Associates. He also started his own AI consultancy before teaming up with his future co-founders to build Cursor. That decision proved transformative.

Cursor was founded in 2022 and quickly emerged as one of the leading AI coding assistants, helping developers generate, edit and improve software code using AI. Its rapid growth attracted billions of dollars in investment and eventually caught the attention of SpaceX. With the SpaceX acquisition now set to go ahead, Sanger's estimated net worth is expected to soar. Forbes previously estimated his fortune at around $1.3 billion based on his 4.5 per cent stake in Cursor, equal to the ownership held by each of the company's other co-founders.

The Cursor acquisition also adds to Elon Musk's rapidly expanding business empire. SpaceX's market value surged to about $2.66 trillion following its blockbuster stock market debut, helping push Musk's estimated net worth to around $1.3 trillion, according to recent market estimates. The $60 billion all-stock purchase of Cursor is part of SpaceX's push into AI and gives the company one of the world's fastest-growing AI coding platforms.