Elon Musk reportedly owes quite a few of his employees $420

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, reportedly owes several employees $420 each after promising the payment in exchange for their personal tax information to help train its AI chatbot, Grok. The offer was made earlier this year as part of an effort to improve Grok’s performance ahead of the April 15 U.S. tax deadline. Despite some employees providing sensitive tax documents, the promised payments have not been delivered, and the manager responsible for the program has since left the company. The initiative aimed to boost Grok’s capabilities in handling tax-related queries, an area where it currently lags behind competitors like Claude and ChatGPT. Employees were also offered early access to X Money, a delayed payments platform linked to Musk’s social network, X. However, the failure to fulfill the payment commitment has raised concerns among staff, especially given the sensitive nature of the data shared. The company has not publicly addressed the issue. The choice of $420 as the payment amount carries a cultural reference to cannabis, a figure Musk has used in the past, notably when he tweeted about buying Tesla stock at $420 per share. That tweet led to significant market disruption and a securities fraud charge, though Musk was ultimately found not liable. The current situation highlights ongoing challenges within Musk’s ventures regarding communication and employee relations, as well as broader questions about data privacy and trust in emerging AI technologies.