Elon Musk wants you to file taxes with Grok | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

Elon Musk posted three words on X this month that grabbed the attention of millions of Americans scrambling to file before the April 15 deadline.

The claim spread fast across social media, arriving during a filing season where the Tax Foundation reports the average refund is running 10.6% higher than last year.

You might be tempted to hand your W-2s and 1099s to a chatbot and let artificial intelligence sort out your entire tax return for you. But the tax professionals, independent researchers, and privacy experts who tested these tools are sounding alarms you should hear before you upload anything.

Musk’s Grok tax claim started with a single $1,400 refund story

The whole pitch traces back to a post from James Burnham, who serves as general counsel for both xAI and X, CNBC reported. Burnham described a user who allegedly used Grok to double-check a TurboTax return and walked away with an additional $1,400 in refund money from the IRS.

Burnham himself added a disclaimer stating that Grok does not constitute tax advice and that users should always confirm the results on their own. Musk reposted it with the now-viral line, and the message reached millions of users during what the Treasury Department has called the largest refund season on record.

Tom O’Saben, director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals, pushed back almost immediately, CNBC reported. O’Saben, who is also an enrolled agent licensed to practice before the IRS, said a bigger refund does not automatically mean your return is correct.

You should always compare your current refund to previous years to understand why the amounts changed, according to O’Saben’s guidance for taxpayers.

Independent tests show AI chatbots miscalculate tax returns

If you are thinking about handing your return to Grok or any other chatbot, the results from recent tests suggest you should stop and think carefully first. The New York Times tested four major AI chatbots on tax scenarios prepared by TaxSlayer and found average miscalculations exceeding $2,000 per return, Gizmodo reported.

Column Tax’s TaxCalcBench benchmark tested frontier AI models on 51 realistic federal returns, and even the best-performing model scored only in the mid-30% accuracy range. AI models consistently failed on credits like the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, which require complex eligibility determinations and phase-out calculations.

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Joel Salas, owner of Elevated Tax Strategies, told Gizmodo he would not advise any taxpayer to use a general-purpose chatbot as a tax reviewer for their filing. Salas pointed out that Grok might show you a higher refund on paper, but that number could come from fabricated data rather than real, legitimate deductions.

Uploading your tax documents to a chatbot creates real privacy risks

Your tax return is one of the most sensitive documents you own, containing your Social Security number, income records, and your full financial picture. Entering that information into a chatbot raises privacy concerns, depending on how the platform stores or processes it.

Privacy concerns with AI tax tools

Stanford researchers found that many leading AI companies feed user inputs back into their models to improve capabilities, unless you manually opt out of data collection.
xAI temporarily made user conversations with Grok publicly visible and searchable, exposing potentially sensitive personal information to anyone browsing the platform at that time.
Meta previously allowed users to browse other people’s prompts and conversations with its chatbot, revealing medical, legal, and financial details to strangers online.
The Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency reportedly sought access to sensitive taxpayer data at the IRS, raising additional questions about the motivations behind this push.

Salas warned in his interview with Gizmodo that AI platforms have not existed long enough for anyone to fully trust them with the data your tax documents contain. If you read the terms and conditions carefully, you would realize that your data could be used for purposes you never intended or approved in writing.

Taxpayers exploring AI tools should understand that the legal responsibility remains theirs, even if a chatbot makes costly filing errors.

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The 2026 tax code is more complex than ever, and chatbots aren’t ready

This filing season is not a typical one, and the complexity of new tax law changes makes AI-assisted filing even more dangerous for your bottom line overall. President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act introduced over 100 changes to the tax code, including new deductions for overtime, tips, and auto loan interest, CNBC reported.

New tax provisions that increase filing complexity

A new Schedule 1-A form covers deductions for overtime pay, tip income, seniors, and auto loan interest that were not part of any previous year’s filing.
More than 27.5 million returns have already claimed at least one new deduction on Schedule 1-A, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Several new provisions include income phase-outs that gradually reduce the benefit for higher earners, creating layered interactions between credits and deductions on returns.
The IRS did not adjust paycheck withholding tables after the July 2025 changes, meaning millions of workers overpaid throughout the second half of the calendar year.

The Tax Foundation reports that the average refund as of late February was $3,742, up 10.6% from $3,382 at the same point in the prior year’s season.

Applying those new rules correctly often requires examining your full financial picture, which is exactly the kind of nuance that TaxCalcBench research confirms chatbots consistently miss.

How to use AI during tax season without risking data or returns

None of this means you should avoid AI entirely during tax season, but you need to understand where the boundary between helpful and harmful sits right now.

Tax professionals increasingly use AI in their own practices, with 34% of tax firms already using generative AI, according to the 2026 AI in Professional Services Report from the Thomson Reuters Institute.

Another 47% of tax firms say they plan to adopt or are actively considering AI technology for tasks such as searching tax law more quickly and drafting client memos.

Safer approaches to AI and tax preparation

Use AI to ask general tax questions about deductions, credits, or filing requirements, but never upload documents containing your Social Security number or income records.
Tools like Taxbox are designed specifically as tax assistants or tutors that help you understand what different documents mean and how to navigate the filing system properly.
If you want free filing help, the IRS Free File program offers guided tax preparation software at no cost for qualifying taxpayers with simple returns to complete.
Always cross-reference any AI-generated tax suggestion against official guidance on IRS.gov or consult a licensed tax professional before you file any documents with the government.
If your tax situation involves new OBBBA deductions, multiple income streams, or investment gains, professional preparation is the safest route to take this year.

You are legally responsible for your return

This is the part that gets lost in the excitement over AI tools, and it is the part that could cost you the most if something goes wrong with your filing. When you file your return, you sign a statement confirming that all the information is accurate to the best of your personal knowledge and belief as a taxpayer.

The IRS does not care whether you used Grok, ChatGPT, TurboTax, or a pencil, because the legal liability for any errors falls entirely on your shoulders alone. A January 2026 survey from Invoice Home found that only 37% of filers would trust AI over a tax professional, which is down from 43% in 2025.

That declining trust reflects a growing public awareness that chatbots are not equipped to handle the full complexity of individual tax situations with any reliability.

The real cost of getting your return wrong in 2026

Math errors triggered by new deductions could cause the IRS to flag your return and delay your refund by weeks, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
If you need to file an amended return using Form 1040-X, your correction will join a backlog that was already two million returns deep before this season started.
The IRS has lost approximately 11% of its workforce due to DOGE-related cuts, and the agency plans to replace workers with AI instead of hiring experienced agents.
E-filed returns with direct deposit remain the fastest path to your refund, but flagged returns with errors could add weeks or even months to your processing timeline.

The April 15 deadline is approaching fast, and the safest move you can make right now is to keep a qualified human professional in the loop on your return. Musk may want you to file your taxes with Grok, but the experts, the data, and your own legal exposure all point clearly in the opposite direction here.