Judge lets first US ban on AI 'nudify' apps take effect, rejecting xAI's last-minute challenge

Judge lets first US ban on AI 'nudify' apps take effect, rejecting xAI's last-minute challenge

A federal judge on Friday let Minnesota's first-in-the-nation ban on AI "nudify" tools take effect, denying an emergency request from xAI to block the law hours before its August 1 start date.

The ruling means the law is live. xAI's broader lawsuit continues, but its bid for an emergency pause failed on a point so basic it undercut the company's own urgency argument: timing.

U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank noted that xAI filed its request for a temporary restraining order on July 29, nearly three months after the law was signed by Gov. Tim Walz and just three days before it was set to take effect. "Such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate," Frank wrote in a two-page order. 1

That is the procedural headline. The substantive constitutional fight is still ahead: Frank scheduled a hearing for August 19 on whether to grant a preliminary injunction. The court could still pause the law later. 2

But for now, the law stands, and it targets platforms, not individual users. Minnesota's statute prohibits anyone who owns or controls a website, app, or software from allowing users to "nudify" images of others. It defines a "nudified" image as one altered or generated to depict an intimate part of an identifiable individual that was not in the original, and it applies only when the output is realistic enough that a reasonable person would believe the intimate part belongs to that person. Violations carry civil penalties of up to $500,000 per unlawful access, download, or use. The state attorney general can enforce the law, and individual victims can sue. There are no criminal penalties. 2

The bill passed the Minnesota legislature 132 to 1 in the House and 65 to 0 in the Senate, a margin that reflects how broadly lawmakers view non-consensual AI-generated imagery as beyond ordinary political dispute. 3

xAI did not dispute Minnesota's interest in preventing non-consensual nude imagery. Instead, the company argued the law is "overinclusive and there are far less restrictive alternatives that function to achieve the same ends." 1

The deeper concern is structural. Minnesota's law imposes liability on platforms regardless of what they knew, what they intended, or what safety measures they deployed. xAI argues that a platform with terms of service prohibiting nudification and state-of-the-art technical controls is treated identically under the law to a platform that actively facilitates it. In its lawsuit, xAI said it already prohibits users "from generating nude or sexualized images of people without their consent." 2

Some free-speech groups have sided with xAI on the overbreadth question, even while acknowledging the harm the law targets. The ACLU of Minnesota, which supported an earlier version of the bill, said the final version fails to strike an appropriate balance between First Amendment rights and victim remedies. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression warned the law could reach political satire, citing examples like images depicting public figures in suggestive clothing. 2

What gives xAI's challenge a particular edge is the company's own record with this exact problem. xAI's Grok chatbot includes an image-generation feature called "Imagine." After a December model release, Grok began producing sexualized images of real people on a large scale, prompting investigations in multiple jurisdictions. In January, Apple threatened to remove Grok from its app store unless xAI made changes. As recently as April, Grok was still generating non-consensual sexualized images as users worked to bypass restrictions xAI had put in place. 2

Earlier this year, users also leveraged Grok to flood X, Elon Musk's social media platform, with non-consensual sexualized images, leading to investigations and bans on the platform. 1

SpaceX, xAI's parent company, faces class action lawsuits from plaintiffs who say Grok created or shared nude deepfakes of them and that xAI failed to alert authorities to the alleged perpetrators. 2

The pressure extends beyond one company. In July, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sent cease-and-desist letters to Apple and Google demanding they remove nudification apps from their app stores. 2

For anyone building AI image tools, the Minnesota law is now a live precedent other states will study. The August 19 hearing will test whether xAI's First Amendment argument can stop a statute that survived a near-unanimous legislature and took effect because no court found the harm urgent enough to hit pause.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who filed the state's opposition to xAI's motion, has not softened his position. "I know that using AI to generate nude images of people against their will is appalling," he said in a statement. 3

Gov. Walz's response to xAI's lawsuit was briefer. He posted "See you in court, creep" on X. 2