Minnesota's ban on AI-made nudify images just cleared its first legal hurdle, over xAI's objection.
A federal judge in Minnesota has denied xAI's request to pause enforcement of the state's new anti-nudification law while the company's constitutional challenge to it plays out in court. Judge Donovan W. Frank wrote that xAI had not demonstrated irreparable harm, and that the balance of harms tips steeply toward the state. The law, the first of its kind in the country, fines companies up to $500,000 each time AI is used to alter an image so that a reasonable viewer would believe the depicted "intimate parts" belong to a real, identifiable person. xAI's broader lawsuit, arguing the law violates its own First Amendment rights and those of its users, has not yet gone to trial.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has already staked out his position, arguing there is no First Amendment right to falsely make someone appear naked. The ruling is an early signal that courts may let state nudification bans stand and take effect while AI companies' free-speech challenges work through the system, rather than pausing enforcement until those challenges are resolved.
Notably, xAI's own Acceptable Use Policy already bans nudifying real people's images, which makes suing to overturn a law against the same conduct look less like a principled free-speech stand and more like keeping its legal options open. That tension looks worse alongside a separate lawsuit in Arkansas accusing xAI of releasing and monetizing a product it knew, or should have known, could be used to digitally exploit children.