# xAI asked employees earlier this year to offer up their own tax returns as training data for the company's Grok chatbot.

*genai · news · 2026-05-18 · The Mercury News*

## Key points

- xAI asked employees to submit their tax returns for Grok chatbot training, promising a $420 payment.
- Payments for tax filing data submissions have not been delivered to employees after two months.
- xAI expanded the data request to employees' family and friends who used human accountants.
- Past xAI data-collection initiatives, like Macrohard, also experienced delayed employee payments.
- Macrohard is now a joint project with Tesla, led by VP of software Ashok Elluswamy.

**Companies:** SpaceX, xAI, Tesla Inc., OpenAI, Anthropic PBC
**Countries:** United States

[Read the full story on The Mercury News](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/05/18/musks-xai-promised-staff-420-for-their-tax-returns-hasnt-paid/)

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