Musk’s xAI has failed in its court attempt to prevent Minnesota's ban on AI ‘nudification’

Minnesota's pioneering ban on AI-generated fake nude images will continue to be enforced as a constitutional challenge by Elon Musk's xAI moves forward, following a federal judge's decision on Friday to not block the law at this early stage of the proceedings.

Musk's xAI company contends that the measure limits free speech safeguarded by the U.S. Constitution, whereas Minnesota asserts that the law is specifically designed to reduce the dissemination of nonconsensual sexual imagery generated by artificial intelligence.


U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank denied xAI's request for a preliminary injunction against the law, which came into effect on August 1 and forbids website operators, software developers, and others from enabling users to "nudify" images of identifiable individuals using AI technology.

Frank’s order indicated that xAI did not demonstrate that it would experience harm while it seeks to pursue a lawsuit claiming that the new law infringes upon the First Amendment of the Constitution by limiting protected expressive activity.

“The constitutional issues raised by the parties are intricate, especially when viewed through the lens of this emerging technology and the potential risks it presents to the public,” Frank wrote. “These issues merit, and will be given, thorough consideration.”


xAI and its legal representatives have yet to provide a response to the requests for comment. The company announced in a court filing on Friday that it intends to appeal the judge's order to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, located in St. Louis.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, described the state's law as "overwhelmingly bipartisan and nearly unanimously approved" by state lawmakers.

These nudification apps have been exploited to create child sexual abuse materials and to harass individuals in the most reprehensible ways possible," Ellison stated on Friday. Such unacceptable behavior has no place in Minnesota.

The judge previously rejected Musk's request in July to halt the law from being implemented but consented to expedite his examination of the measure.

Musk’s Grok AI chatbot has encountered backlash due to its generation of sexually explicit content. Regulators have pursued enhanced protections and enacted prohibitions to assist in limiting the dissemination of unlawfully generated artificial content.

xAI has initiated legal action against users it claims are circumventing Grok’s technological barriers to produce sexual images of individuals without their consent.