Google's bid for Spirit's data is a reminder that your work emails aren't really yours

Spirit Airlines employed around 9,700 employees in 2025.

Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images Google bid $10 million for corporate data from Spirit Airlines, which shut down earlier this year.

The data includes emails and messages.

It excludes customer data and has been anonymized, Google said.

Attorneys told Business Insider it's a reminder that work data isn't private.

Long after the goodbye cake is gone, you could still be valuable to your employer.

The digital trail that employees create at work has become a hot commodity for companies looking to build and train AI models — sometimes, as with Spirit Airlines, outlasting the businesses that accumulated it.

Google won a bidding war, paying $10 million for Spirit's internal data, according to a bankruptcy court filing dated August 14.

The trove includes the airline's internal documents, workflows, emails, some 500 million Teams messages, and its codebase.

It excludes customer data and has been anonymized, Google said.

Spirit stopped flying in May after going bankrupt.

It employed about 9,700 full-time workers in 2025, according to its most recent annual report.

For Google, the deal appears to be a bargain.

For Spirit employees — and workers everywhere — it's a reminder that work emails and other workplace communications ultimately aren't yours.