A federal judge on Friday kept Minnesota’s ban on AI “nudification” tools in force while Elon Musk’s xAI continues its First Amendment challenge, MPR News and the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. U.S. District Judge Donovan W. Frank of the District of Minnesota denied a preliminary injunction, leaving Attorney General Keith Ellison free to seek civil penalties of up to $500,000 per violation under a law that took effect Aug. 1.
The statute bars companies that offer AI image tools from letting users generate sexualized depictions of identifiable people’s intimate parts without consent. xAI sued in late July, arguing the law is an overbroad, content-based speech ban that threatens protected expression, including through its Grok Imagine features. Bloomberg Law said the company failed to show irreparable harm warranting an early block.
Frank weighed the public interest heavily for the state. In language quoted by MPR, he wrote that Minnesota had enacted a civil statute “aimed at protecting the public from the undisputed harm stemming from AI-nudification technology and the resulting proliferation of photorealistic sexualized images.” The Star Tribune reported he also found the balance of harms “tips steeply” toward the state. He noted xAI waited nearly three months after the May signing and sought emergency relief only days before the effective date, calling the company a sophisticated litigant that would have moved faster if irreparable harm were genuine.
CBS Minnesota said the bill passed nearly unanimously in the legislature and that Gov. Tim Walz signed it in May. Ellison said Friday his office would keep defending the law and the people it protects. Attorneys for xAI filed notice they would seek Eighth Circuit review of the injunction denial. A state motion to dismiss the underlying suit remains pending, MPR reported.
The ruling does not decide the constitutional merits. It keeps Minnesota’s first-of-its-kind nudification ban enforceable while the case proceeds on appeal and in the district court.