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

• Big Tech

xAI promised workers the money in exchange for tax information to train Grok.

Elon Musk owes a bunch of xAI employees $420, according to a report by Bloomberg. The CEO reportedly promised employees earlier this year he would pony up that amount of money if they offered up their personal tax returns as training data for Grok. Surprisingly, payments have yet to materialize.

This was an attempt to improve Grok's capabilities ahead of the April 15 US tax deadline. Many people use AI chatbots to help with tax returns, despite the risks, but most opt for Claude or ChatGPT over Grok. The company is reportedly trying to reverse that trend.

So managers began offering employees the aforementioned cash payment, according to company messages spotted by Bloomberg. They were also offered early access to X Money, which is a long-delayed payments platform headed to the social network X.

It looks like some employees coughed up the relevant data, which included completed tax filings and supporting documents and materials from this year or last year. Months passed, however, and that check for $420 never arrived. Staffers have reportedly asked about the payment, only to find out that the manager in charge of the program was no longer working there. The company has yet to respond to Bloomberg's report.

I'm not sure why anyone would hand over something as sensitive as tax information to Elon Musk of all people. However, Americans are struggling. A few hundred bucks may not go a long way in 2026, but it's something.

That leaves the payment amount. Why did Elon Musk offer $420 as a bonus? It's a weed reference that goes all the way back to the 1970s. He absolutely loves this joke, even though this isn't the first time it's gotten him into trouble. He once posted on social media that he had secured funding to buy all of Tesla's stock at $420 per share.

This led to obvious confusion and a major disruption in the market. The NASDAQ temporarily suspended trading in Tesla's stock and Musk was slapped with a securities fraud charge brought by the SEC. A jury eventually found him not liable for any losses Tesla investors experienced following the post. Musk said on the stand during that trial that just because he posts something, it "does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly." That's good to know.