™Google's $10M Bid for Spirit Airlines' Data to Train AI Draws Fire From 120+ Lawmakers
Google won the asset-liquidation auction of defunct Spirit Airlines and plans to buy its internal data for $10 million to train AI, Reuters reports — data that includes 100 million emails and 500 million employee Teams messages.
What happened
Reuters reported on October 8 that Google won the bankruptcy auction of Spirit Airlines, which stopped flying in May, with a $10 million bid for its internal data to train AI. The data includes employee records such as 100 million emails and 500 million Teams messages; personal information on about 97 million passengers has been excluded. Mercor had bid $7.5 million.
More than 120 members of Congress, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Steven Horsford, wrote to Google asking that employee information be excluded as far as possible. The privacy ombudsman in the bankruptcy case has recommended that the judge approve the deal after an October 14 hearing.
Key facts
- Price: $10 million (Mercor bid $7.5 million)
- Data: 100 million emails, 500 million Teams messages and other employee records
- Excluded: personal information on about 97 million passengers
- Next: bankruptcy court hearing on October 14
Why it matters
The assets are the internal data of a defunct airline — including 100 million emails and 500 million employee Teams messages — to be used for AI training; more than 120 lawmakers have jointly opposed the deal.
CompaniesGoogle
Comments
Related
- Oct 9UK's ICO Names 10 AI Labs in Training-Data Privacy Crackdown: "No Justification" for Non-Compliance
- Oct 8White House Announces $2.4B in AI-for-Science Tool and Compute Credit Pledges From 11 Companies
- Oct 5NYC Council AI Hearing Opens: Whistleblower Testifies Labs Are "Extremely Reckless," Humanity "More Likely" to Lose Control
- Oct 11Google's $15 Billion India AI Data Center Sparks Backlash; Company Responds to Water and Power Fears
- Oct 10Google Tests Internal Gemini 4 "Carbon" for Coding; Staff Say It Rivals Claude Opus 5.5
Today
Oct 12 Monday- Brief
- Quiz
- Call
Latest news
All →- Oct 12Hands-On: Perplexity pplx-embed-v2-late — the 0.6B Model That Queries a 9B Index
- Oct 12Moonshot in Settlement Talks Before Its IPO: A Claim Above $700 Million Dating to a Spin-Out
- Oct 12text-to-cad Hits GitHub Weekly Chart: CAD Skills for Agents
- Oct 12colibri Hits GitHub Trending: Pure-C Engine Runs a 744B Model on Ordinary PCs
- Oct 12Moonshot Executives Reported in Settlement Talks With Shareholder, Claim Tops $700 Million
- Oct 11Amazon in Talks to Buy AI Startup Decart in Deal Valued Around $7 Billion