**OpenAI** has hired **Ismail Elmas**, who was previously responsible for **Cursor's** European business, to oversee sales across the **Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)** region. Cursor is a coding company that was acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion.
Key point
Elmas, based in Munich, leads OpenAI's sales across the **Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)** region.
He is the second sales executive to move from SpaceX to OpenAI within the past three weeks.
OpenAI plans to stop supplying models to Cursor effective November 12.
OpenAI appoints Elmas as head of EMEA sales
A German business daily reported on Thursday that OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has appointed Elmas as vice president of sales for the EMEA region and that his workplace will be in Munich. The outlet said it obtained the appointment information in advance and ran comments from both Elmas and OpenAI’s global sales head. It also quoted sources familiar with the company, saying the move is being seen as a strong signal to the German market after OpenAI announced plans to establish its first German branch in 2025.
According to reports, all of OpenAI’s sales personnel across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa will report to Elmas. He is someone who previously built Cursor’s business across the same region. OpenAI plans to significantly expand its European sales organization ahead of its IPO, and the daily said that the listing schedule appears to have been pushed back to 2027.
Elmas is the second sales executive to leave SpaceX and join OpenAI in recent three weeks. The related job-change news was also covered in a separate report.
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McCarthy on Elmas’s appointment: “A person who will drive growth in Europe”
Brian McCarthy, OpenAI’s global sales vice president, said that Elmas will help companies gain tangible value from new technologies as OpenAI grows in Europe.
Elmas said that OpenAI has fundamentally changed how people work and how companies operate, adding that AI provides enormous opportunities for European firms while also emphasizing that OpenAI must stay closely connected to customers’ touchpoints and accurately understand their tasks.
The two people have previously worked together at the same company. After McCarthy oversaw global revenue at Cursor and SpaceX, he joined OpenAI last September. Before that, he served as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at the data security company **Rubrik**, and he also recruited Elmas as vice president for international business groups in 2023. McCarthy’s first senior hire under OpenAI’s Chief Revenue Officer, Dali Rajic, who was hired by OpenAI on August 24, was Elmas.
Cursor–SpaceX, and the rift with OpenAI
Before moving to OpenAI, Elmas served as Cursor’s senior vice president for EMEA. In June, at a time when SpaceX still held options to acquire Cursor, he said Cursor planned to set up a European headquarters in London and expand local staff from up to around 80 people to about 200 by year-end.
Then, on August 28, after SpaceX completed the Cursor acquisition, OpenAI informed Cursor that it would stop supplying its models to Cursor. The planned cutoff date was set for November 12, reflecting the maximum notice period allowed under the contract. OpenAI said it could not have confidence that SpaceX would use its technology in a way that complies with the terms, citing past contract-violation cases involving companies led by **Elon Musk**. Cursor will also not receive any new models from OpenAI, including ones to be released in the future.
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