SpaceX AI unit explores buying data from failed startups

SpaceX's artificial intelligence division has held informal internal discussions about purchasing customer and operational data from defunct or struggling startups to train its Grok AI models, according to people familiar with the talks. The discussions, which may not result in a deal, highlight a growing industry trend of acquiring data from bankrupt companies to fuel AI development, raising significant privacy and legal concerns. The talks are being conducted by SpaceXAI, the AI unit formed in February when SpaceX merged with xAI. The division is seeking affordable data to train its Grok chatbot, which currently lags behind competing models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta. SpaceXAI spent $15.8 billion on AI efforts in its first earnings report last quarter, ending with a $1.3 billion net operating loss. The strategy mirrors a recent move by Google, which made a $10 million bid in a bankruptcy auction to acquire business data from Spirit Airlines, including 100 million emails and 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, to train its Gemini models. A union representing former Spirit employees filed an objection in U.S.