May 20, 2026
Earlier in March of this year, xAI reportedly asked employees to upload their completed tax returns to Grok to help train the chatbot, which has otherwise been criticized for not having sufficient guardrails (1). In exchange for doing so, they would receive a $420 payment, according to Bloomberg (2). Now, two months later, employees who voluntarily participated still haven’t received the promised funds.
According to internal chats seen by Bloomberg, this incentive was offered to employees ahead of U.S. tax deadline day on April 15 so Grok could get in the ring and really compete with Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which Americans were already using as the preferred AI platforms for tax help.
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Friends and family of xAI employees were also encouraged to volunteer (and promised the payment) as long as they had used an accountant, not AI, to prepare their taxes.
What xAI offered and where it now stands
In addition to the one-time $420 payment (yes, that’s another marijuana reference (3) from Elon Musk), employees were also told they would get early access to X Money, the long-awaited payments platform being built into X, Bloomberg reported.
To meet the requirements for the incentive, volunteers had to upload their completed tax filings as well as any supporting documents and materials either from the 2025 or 2024 tax years, according to internal chats viewed by Bloomberg.
And this is not the first time that Musk has asked employees to provide crucial training data for Grok.
In late 2025, employees were asked to provide their work data (via screen recording) for a software project known as Macrohard. The goal was to use AI agents to “replicate an entire company.” At the time, those who participated were promised a 20% bonus. The payments did eventually come but it took a while, according to people familiar with the matter Bloomberg reported.
The interesting twist in this latest case is that some xAI employees have asked where the payment is and were told the manager responsible is no longer working there.
This is the latest blow in an already challenging year for employee morale.
Researchers continue to leave the company due to burnout and Musk’s “extremely hardcore” work demands (as well as better work opportunities elsewhere). Additionally, the xAI and SpaceX merger led to a management overhaul, with a post-merger audit of xAI leading to a dismissal of several employees whose work was deemed inadequate. More co-founders of xAI were pushed out due to coding division underperformance, leaving only two of the original 12 co-founders intact, Financial Times reported (4).
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At the time, staff were frustrated and felt all the change was harming employee morale — now there’s another reason to be frustrated.
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Should you share personal information with AI?
This latest story asks whether anyone, employee or otherwise, should share personal information like income, amount of taxes paid, SSN and a range of other confidential details with an AI chatbot.
A recent study from Stanford (5) highlights that there are privacy risks in doing so because AI companies are using your AI chatbot conversations to train their LLMs. This could include everything from your request for dinner ideas or trip itineraries to financial questions or tax advice.
For tax returns specifically, experts warn that AI can give out of date information or simply inaccurate guidance because it is scraping information from a variety of websites which may or may not include the latest requirements or details specific to your situation. CBS News (6) mentions that recent tax changes from the “one big beautiful bill act” may not be reflected in AI replies because it is so recent.
When it comes to such info, an Engadget (3) writer mentions that he’s “not sure why anyone would hand over something as sensitive as tax information to Elon Musk of all people.” However, given the current state of the economy and the financial struggles many are experiencing, even $420 could have had appeal and made the tradeoff worthwhile for some.
And while xAI employees await their payments, those not being compensated for sharing sensitive personal information should remain cautious about what it could instead cost them.
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
Australian Institute of International Affairs (1); Bloomberg (2); Engadget (3); Reuters (4); Stanford HAI (5); CBS News (6)
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Joanna Sinclair holds a B.A. in Professional Writing from York University and has been working in digital media for nearly two decades.
