SpaceXAI has held informal internal talks about buying leftover customer and operational data from startups that have already gone under to train its Grok model. In a bankruptcy auction, Google paid $10 million for Spirit Airlines’ internal records, which included around 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages and decades of employee files, and Chapter 11 is the bankruptcy process that lets a failing company liquidate its assets to pay off debt.
SpaceXAI has held informal internal talks about buying leftover customer files and operational data from startups that have already gone under to train its Grok model. Some bankruptcy-obtained data sets have contained around 100 million emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams messages and decades of employee files. At least some of those records belonged to real employees who signed up for a job rather than being data from an AI experiment.
Bankruptcy auctions commonly sell customer databases to the highest bidder without asking customers, and such auctions have transferred employee communications and records to buyers. Those datasets include large volumes of emails, instant-messaging content and decades of employee documents. The talks at SpaceXAI are described as informal and might not lead to any purchases.
In August 2026, Elon Musk addressed SpaceX employees, discussing plans to enhance AI training processes by mining internal data. During the meeting, Musk stated, “It will inherit your thoughts,” indicating a strategic shift towards utilizing SpaceX’s own data sources for AI development, beyond acquiring data externally. This approach aligns with the company’s recent technological endeavors, including the release of Grok 4.5 in July 2026. Grok 4.5 is SpaceX’s first AI model launched post the merger with xAI. Additionally, the company has made significant acquisitions such as the purchase of Cursor for $60 billion, highlighting its continued investment in AI innovation. A new version of Grok is also anticipated to be released in the near future, showcasing ongoing efforts to advance AI capabilities at SpaceX.
SpaceXAI has taken an investigative and cautious approach to acquiring bankrupt startups’ leftover customer and operational data, holding informal internal talks that may not lead to purchases. The plan raises critical issues about using externally acquired datasets for AI training, because bankruptcy auctions can transfer employee communications and customer databases to buyers without asking those individuals, and many of the records originate from real employees rather than from controlled AI experiments.
