Minnesota's Deepfake Nudify Ban Survives xAI Challenge

A federal judge has refused to block Minnesota's first-in-the-nation ban on nudification technology, letting the state keep the law in force while Elon Musk's xAI presses a constitutional challenge. Judge Donovan Frank of the US District Court ruled on September 4 that xAI had not shown enough to justify halting a statute the legislature passed with near-unanimous support.

The law targets tools that generate sexualized deepfake images of real people without their consent. It took effect on August 1 and carries civil penalties of up to $500,000 per violation for companies that make such tools available in the state. xAI has drawn scrutiny over Grok's image features, which users pushed to produce non-consensual explicit images at scale, prompting outcry and investigations in several jurisdictions.

What the judge said

Frank leaned on the democratic weight behind the statute. The state, he wrote, "has enacted, democratically and nearly unanimously, a civil statute aimed at protecting the public from" documented harms, including the psychological toll on victims and the risk of child exploitation. The law cleared the Minnesota House 132 to 1 and the Senate 65 to 0, a level of agreement that is rare on anything touching technology.

xAI argues the ban violates the First Amendment by restricting protected expression. Frank acknowledged the constitutional questions are real, but he found xAI's own timing worked against it. In an earlier ruling he noted the company waited nearly three months after the law was signed before seeking emergency relief, only days before it took effect, which undercut the claim of urgent, irreparable harm.

Where it goes next

This is not the end of the fight. xAI has filed notice to seek review at the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Minnesota's motion to dismiss the company's lawsuit outright is still pending before Judge Frank. For now the ban stands, and any company offering nudification tools to Minnesota users is exposed to the half-million-dollar penalty on each violation.

The case is being watched well beyond Minnesota. Other states have been drafting rules for AI image tools and chatbots, and a ruling that a consent-based ban can survive a First Amendment challenge would give them cover to act. It also lands at an awkward moment for xAI, which has spent recent weeks courting enterprise customers with promises of tighter controls. See our earlier report on xAI's enterprise push.