# Michael Truell

Co-founder and CEO, Cursor. TIME100 AI 2026, Innovators. In 2016 he co-created Halite, a programming contest where players build AI bots that battle each other. ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halite_AI_Programming_Competition))

- Born: New York City, United States ([en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Truell))
- Education: Bachelor's, Computer science and mathematics, MIT, 2021 ([linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-t-5b1bbb122))
- Career: SpaceX (AI, 2026 to now); Cursor (Co-founder and CEO, 2022–2026) ([linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-t-5b1bbb122), [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michael-t-5b1bbb122_cursor-is-now-a-part-of-spacex-cursor-activity-7494039398942978049-Fbjx))
- TIME profile: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/michael-truell/
- Profile: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/most-influential-people-in-ai/michael-truell

- In 2016, two years before starting at MIT, he co-created the AI programming contest Halite and brought it to Two Sigma. ([linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-t-5b1bbb122))
- Spent the summer of 2017 at MIT's Research Science Institute working on probabilistic programming. ([linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-t-5b1bbb122))
- Interned at Google in 2019 on language models for feed ranking, three years before starting Cursor. ([linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-t-5b1bbb122))
- Spent 2020 interning at Octant, a biotech startup, on computational chemistry. ([linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-t-5b1bbb122))
- Announced in August 2026 that Cursor was officially part of SpaceXAI. ([linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/michael-t-5b1bbb122_cursor-is-now-a-part-of-spacex-cursor-activity-7494039398942978049-Fbjx))