xAI reportedly offered employees $420 in exchange for personal tax returns to train Grok ahead of the April 15 deadline. According to a Bloomberg report, managers pitched the deal as a way to boost Grok's capabilities against competitors like Claude and ChatGPT. Despite submitting completed filings and supporting documents, workers never received the promised cash.

Managers sweetened the offer with early access to X Money, the long-delayed payments platform tied to the social network X. Some staffers handed over sensitive data, only for the check to never arrive. The manager running the program apparently departed the company, leaving employees without answers. xAI has not responded to the report.

The $420 figure is vintage Musk — a nod to cannabis culture he's leaned on before. Back in 2018, he posted about securing funding to buy all Tesla stock at $420 per share, sparking a NASDAQ trading suspension and an SEC securities fraud charge. That history makes handing over tax info to xAI feel especially reckless. A few hundred dollars may not go far in 2026, but a company that can't pay its people $420 has bigger problems.