{"id":3485,"date":"2026-07-31T19:41:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T19:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=3485"},"modified":"2026-07-31T19:41:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T19:41:41","slug":"judge-denies-request-by-elon-musks-xai-to-pause-minnesota-nudification-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=3485","title":{"rendered":"Judge denies request by Elon Musk\u2019s xAI to pause Minnesota nudification ban"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A federal judge on Friday denied a request from Elon Musk\u2019s artificial intelligence company xAI to block a Minnesota law that will be the first in the nation to ban nudification technology.<\/p>\n

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U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank ruled that there was little risk of immediate harm from the law going into effect as scheduled on Saturday, despite a lawsuit this week from xAI claiming that the law violates the First Amendment\u2019s guarantee of free speech.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cxAI filed the motion on July 29, 2026, nearly three months after the law was signed, and only three days before the law is set to take effect. Such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate,\u201d the judge wrote , denying xAI\u2019s request for a pause to the law.<\/p>\n

The court could still pause the law at a later time. The judge wrote that he\u2019ll hold a hearing on Aug. 19 on whether to grant a preliminary injunction.<\/p>\n

The law, which was signed by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz in May, prohibits a person who owns or controls a website, application or software to allow their users to \u201cnudify\u201d images of others. It also prohibits anyone from advertising nudification capabilities. <\/p>\n

In its lawsuit filed Monday, Musk\u2019s company did not dispute Minnesota\u2019s interest in banning nudification websites and apps, but said: \u201cThe law is overinclusive and there are far less restrictive alternatives that function to achieve the same ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Grok, one of xAI\u2019s products, has faced severe scrutiny for its \u2018Imagine\u2019 feature that uses AI to generate and edit images and videos of users. After the release of a December model, Grok began producing sexualized deepfakes of people with less clothing at the request of users on a massive scale, prompting worldwide outcry and investigations in several jurisdictions. In January, Apple threatened to remove Grok from its app store unless it made changes.<\/p>\n

As recently as April, Grok was continuing to generate sexualized images of people without their consent, as users tried to break through restrictions that xAI put in place in January.<\/p>\n

Minnesota\u2019s law defines a \u201cnudified\u201d image or video as something that has been \u201caltered or generated to depict an intimate part not depicted in an original unaltered image or video of an identifiable individual.\u201d <\/p>\n

The law applies only when \u201cthe altered or generated image or video is so realistic that a reasonable person would believe that the intimate part belongs to the identifiable individual.\u201dIn response to the lawsuit, Walz said \u201cSee you in court, creep\u201d in an X post Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Violating Minnesota\u2019s law could result in a civil penalty of up to $500,000 \u201cfor each unlawful access, download or use,\u201d in addition to civil penalties for mental anguish, punitive damages, attorney\u2019s fees, or \u201cother relief the court deems just and equitable.\u201d The law says the state\u2019s attorney general may enforce it and that victims may sue on their own. The law does not include criminal penalties.<\/p>\n

Keith Ellison, the Attorney General of Minnesota, on Friday, arguing for the court to deny xAI\u2019s temporary restraining order, convert it into a preliminary injunction motion, and proceed from there. Ellison argued that xAI waited too long \u2014 three months after the law was passed \u2014 to file an emergency delay, and that their \u201cvoluntary delay should not create a manufactured emergency for the Attorney General or the Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

xAI\u2019s criticism of the law is drawing support from some free speech advocates including the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, which supported passage of the law in an earlier form in February but has since turned against it. <\/p>\n

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\u201cWhile we believe that creating the technology to alter or \u2018nudify\u2019 photos of identifiable people is protected by the First Amendment, we also recognize that the non-consensual creation and dissemination of such material can inflict damage on people appearing in those images,\u201d the ACLU of Minnesota said in a statement Friday. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn engaging with lawmakers on this issue, we hoped to strike an appropriate balance between First Amendment rights and the ability of people harmed to seek remedial measures, not unlike the remedies available to people harmed by defamation. The final version of the bill does not strike that balance,\u201d the organization said.<\/p>\n

xAI argued that it already prohibits users \u201cfrom generating nude or sexualized images of people without their consent.\u201d <\/p>\n

SpaceX, xAI\u2019s parent company, faces class action lawsuits from plaintiffs who claim Grok\u2019s AI chatbot created or shared nude deepfakes of them as children or as adults. The lawsuits also say that xAI failed to alert authorities to the alleged perpetrators who used the tool to create their nude deepfakes. <\/p>\n

Minnesota\u2019s law came among wider efforts to regulate AI platforms that can generate deepfakes. In July, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sent Apple and Google cease and desist letters demanding they remove nudification apps from their app stores. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

xAI\u2019s lawsuit argued that creating images and videos using Grok Imagine is a protected First Amendment activity, and that Minnesota\u2019s law did not provide a \u201csafe harbor for good-faith efforts,\u201d for companies to avoid nudification efforts. <\/p>\n

\u201cLiability attaches even if the depicted persons consented \u2014 or created the image themselves \u2014 and even if the image is never shared,\u201d xAI\u2019s lawsuit said. \u201cLiability also attaches even if the image has artistic, scientific, political, satirical, educational, medical, or religious value, and (again) even if the company has deployed near-perfect, state-of the-art technical controls to prevent the generation of nude images.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit included several examples of screenshots that it said would be banned under Minnesota\u2019s law including one image shared by President Donald Trump showing him and other lawmakers floating shirtless in the Reflecting Pool at the National Mall.<\/p>\n

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech group, said it agreed that the state law is overly broad.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinnesota\u2019s law is supposed to stop AI-generated nude images, but it\u2019s written so broadly that it could end up covering benign political memes too, like President Trump in a bikini or former President Obama in hotpants,\u201d John Coleman, legislative council for AI and free expression at the foundation, said in a statement. \u201cThat goes far beyond prohibiting unlawful content like child sexual abuse material, which is already illegal. Instead, it sweeps in ordinary political speech and satire that Americans create and share online every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans have a First Amendment right to joke about, criticize, and parody public figures. A law that reaches that expression deserves to be struck down by the courts,\u201d Coleman said. <\/p>\n

Read more Sean Grayson, officer who shot Sonya Massey, denied medical release from 20-year prison sentence<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A judge denied a request from Elon Musk\u2019s AI company xAI to block Minnesota\u2019s law that will be the first in the nation to ban nudification technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"yoast_head":"\nJudge denies request by Elon Musk\u2019s xAI to pause Minnesota nudification ban - Trusted Moving Group<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=3485\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Judge denies request by Elon Musk\u2019s xAI to pause Minnesota nudification ban - 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