Replit CEO says he wants to stay independent amid sale talk

In short: Replit CEO Amjad Masad said he would prefer not to sell the company, even as acquisition rumors swirl around a rival.

What happened

Amjad Masad, the CEO of Replit, spoke at TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event in San Francisco about whether Replit might be sold. This comes as TechCrunch reported that Cursor, a competing AI coding tool, is in talks to be acquired by SpaceX for $60 billion.

Masad said Replit will try to stay independent, although he did not fully rule out a sale. He argued that Replit’s business can support independence because it has been “gross margin positive” for more than a year, meaning it makes money after paying the direct costs of running the service.

Masad also said Replit has grown quickly. He told TechCrunch that Replit went from $2.8 million in revenue in all of 2024 to tracking toward what he described as a billion-dollar annual run rate.

During the conversation, Masad discussed Replit’s dispute with Apple over App Store updates. Apple’s concern is about “downloading new code” after an app is approved, which Apple says breaks its rules. Masad called Apple’s explanation a lie and said Replit could prove its case in court if needed.

Why it matters

Tools like Replit are aimed at helping more people build software, including people who do not code. If a major platform blocks an app, or if a company is bought and its priorities change, that can affect what users can build and where they can publish it.

Source: TechCrunch AI