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xAI Sought Employees’ Tax Returns to Train Grok, $420 Payments Still Unpaid

The unpaid offer spotlights privacy risks in xAI’s push to train Grok with real tax filings.

Overview

  • Reports published Monday said xAI asked employees, plus friends and family, to submit completed tax returns in exchange for $420.
  • The company also requested supporting documents and promised access to an X Money payments feature tied to the submission.
  • Two months after the request, participants say they have not been paid and were told the manager running the program is no longer at the company.
  • xAI framed the drive as a way to sharpen Grok’s tax-prep help before the April 15 filing deadline as the chatbot lags rivals from OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, and Google.
  • Full tax returns bundle Social Security numbers, income data, and bank details, so using them for AI training raises significant privacy and data-governance concerns.