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MINNEAPOLIMEDIA NEWS | Federal Judge Allows Minnesota's AI “Nudification” Law to Remain in Effect During xAI Challenge
Elon Musk's artificial-intelligence company failed to win an early injunction against the new Minnesota law, but its constitutional challenge will continue on appeal.
MINNEAPOLIS, MN (September 5, 2026). A federal judge has refused to temporarily block Minnesota's new law targeting artificial-intelligence systems that facilitate the creation of fake nude images of identifiable people without their consent, handing the state an early victory in a closely watched constitutional dispute with Elon Musk's xAI.
U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank denied xAI's request for a preliminary injunction Friday, allowing the law to remain in effect while the company's broader lawsuit proceeds.
The Minnesota law took effect August 1 and targets the use of artificial intelligence to create or facilitate nonconsensual sexually explicit depictions of identifiable individuals.
xAI contends the law violates the First Amendment by imposing restrictions on constitutionally protected expression.
Minnesota has defended the measure as a targeted response to increasingly accessible technology that can be used to create realistic sexual images of people who never consented to their production or distribution.
Frank did not resolve the ultimate constitutional dispute.
Instead, he concluded at this preliminary stage that xAI had not established the grounds necessary to stop Minnesota from enforcing the law while the case continues. The judge acknowledged that the litigation raises difficult questions involving new technologies and constitutional protections.
The ruling is significant because Minnesota's law sits near the leading edge of state efforts to regulate generative artificial intelligence.
Tools capable of digitally removing clothing, altering photographs or generating realistic sexual depictions have become increasingly accessible, raising concerns involving harassment, exploitation, privacy and child sexual abuse material.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison defended the law after Friday's ruling, describing it as a bipartisan attempt to address serious abuses associated with AI-generated sexual imagery.
xAI, which operates the Grok artificial-intelligence system, has said it intends to appeal to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
That means Friday's ruling should not be interpreted as a final determination that every provision of Minnesota's law is constitutional.
A preliminary injunction proceeding asks whether enforcement should be halted while the lawsuit is litigated. The underlying First Amendment arguments remain before the courts.
The case nevertheless establishes Minnesota as an important testing ground in a larger national debate.
States are increasingly attempting to respond to AI-enabled harms through laws governing election deception, sexually explicit deepfakes, fraud, impersonation and digital exploitation. Technology companies, meanwhile, are challenging some of those restrictions on constitutional and statutory grounds.
The Minnesota litigation could therefore help define how far states may go when regulating artificial-intelligence outputs without unlawfully restricting protected speech.
For now, Minnesota's law remains enforceable.
The next major legal stage will likely move to the federal appeals court, where xAI has indicated it will challenge Frank's refusal to suspend the measure.
The ultimate question is considerably broader than one company or one Minnesota statute.
Courts are beginning to determine where longstanding constitutional protections end and government authority begins when technology can create highly realistic depictions of real people doing things that never happened.
Minnesota has now won the first significant round of that fight.
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