July 31 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday turned down a request by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, to block a Minnesota law banning nudification technology.
Minnesota in May became the first state in the nation to pass legislation banning the practice of using AI to digitally remove clothing from a pictured individual.
xAI, which develops the chatbot and image generator Grok, filed the suit over the ban Tuesday.
“The court respectfully denies the request for a temporary restraining order before tomorrow,” U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank ruled on Friday. “xAI 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.”
The federal judge set a hearing on Aug. 19 to evaluate the lawsuit.
“See you in court, creep,” Gov. Tim Walz said in a statement on X, referring to Musk.
In its lawsuit, xAI argues that the Minnesota law “imposes an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech and the tools of visual expression in a clumsy attempt to prohibit ‘nudification.'”
“xAI accordingly does not contest Minnesota’s interest in prohibiting the dissemination of artificially generated nude images of real people without their consent,” the company wrote in court documents. “But the statute Minnesota enacted extends far beyond that goal, exposing a wide array of protected speech to civil liability and government sanctions.”
Minnesota’s law would apply fines of $500,000 to websites and apps providing nudification technology.
Musk’s company has faced intense scrutiny since a version of Grok, released in December, began generating thousands of sexualized images, including some that appeared to be of minors.
The company in January changed its policies, but Grok continued to generate sexualized images as late as April.