xAI Asks a Federal Court to Block Minnesota's AI 'Nudification' Ban

xAI filed a 39-page complaint in U.S. District Court for Minnesota on July 27 to block the state's new law banning AI "nudification" tools before the statute takes effect in August. The case is not about whether the underlying harm is real. xAI concedes Minnesota's interest in outlawing nonconsensual intimate imagery. The fight is about how the state chose to define that harm.

HF 1606, passed this year and set to take effect in August 2026, prohibits downloading or using "nudification technology," or software that strips clothing from a person in a photo to produce a realistic nude. The statute carves out outputs that require substantial technological or artistic skill directed by a human. Violators face state fines and civil suits from private plaintiffs, and the law creates a private right of action for victims of nonconsensual imagery.

Over the recent holiday break, a Grok image-generation feature went viral after users discovered it could produce realistic nude images of real people, including, by one estimate circulated by researchers and the press, roughly 23,000 sexualized images of children. X's parent company at the time said it had "zero tolerance" for child exploitation and nonconsensual nudity, and the feature was later restricted. Minnesota's legislature wrote HF 1606 with that episode in view.

xAI, recently rebranded as SpaceXAI but still using xAI in its legal filings, does not challenge that history. The complaint, filed against Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, lays out three specific objections to HF 1606's text. The statute borrows a definition of "intimate" body parts that includes female and male breasts and "inner thigh." It lacks any scienter requirement, so a user who runs an everyday photo through a covered tool is exposed even without intent. And it imposes what xAI calls "massive" civil penalties on platforms for content they did not author. Each of those features, the company argues, makes the law facially overbroad under the First Amendment.

Because HF 1606 has not yet taken effect, xAI can mount a facial challenge: a request to strike the law down as written, not just as applied to Grok. The court is now in the pre-effective-date window where facial relief is most available, and the company is asking the judge to enjoin the statute before August. A ruling for the state would let Minnesota start enforcing HF 1606 on day one. A ruling for xAI would block enforcement nationwide, including against any other company that ships a similar tool.

At least a dozen other states have introduced or passed their own nudification bills this year, and HF 1606 is one of the more aggressive in scope. A ruling that "intimate" body parts must be narrowed, or that nudification statutes must require knowledge or intent, would push drafters in those states to redraft. A ruling that HF 1606 survives would give attorneys general a model statute to copy. The complaint, and the briefing that will follow, is being filed not just for Minnesota but for every legislature now writing the same kind of law.

The court has not yet set a hearing date. The next milestone is the state's response to the complaint, due in the coming weeks.