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We’ve long known that internet memelord Elon Musk is a big fan of 420. Well, he also reportedly really loves ketamine, but we’re talking about the dumb meme number, and not necessarily his alleged drug habits. And while anyone who willingly works under the guy may well share his juvenile sense of humor, something tells us that xAI employees no longer find their boss’s obsession with the weed number all that funny.
Bloomberg reports that Musk’s AI company promised to pay workers $420 if they fed their tax returns into the company’s chatbot Grok, but that two months later, he still hasn’t paid them the money he owes. Let that one sink in, chumps!
Musk’s incredible act of stiffing his loyal grunts came as the company was seeking to beef up Grok’s tax capabilities ahead of this year’s tax day as more people turn to chatbots to help make nice with the IRS.
Managers at the company came up with an ingenious scheme: tax filings and other relevant documents in exchange for cold, hard cash — plus early access to X Money, Musk’s creatively named payments platform. But why stop at employees? The plan was extended to employees’ family and friends who used an accountant to prepare their taxes, according to Bloomberg — and they, too, were promised money.
Much like a dud edible that never kicked in after hours of waiting, the $420 payments still haven’t materialized. And it sounds like xAI is giving its employees the ol’ run around: some employees who asked about where their money was were told that the manager in charge of the scheme no longer worked there, per the reporting.
Of course, those payments could eventually come through, but it’s not a great look at a company where morale is already running low after Musk announced sweeping layoffs and forced out some of its cofounders.
It’s not the only instance of a tech company trying to plunder its own company for training data and backfiring. At Meta, employees have revolted against a new initiative to closely track their mouse movements, keyboard strokes, and record their screens, and use that data to train its AI models.
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