Elon Musk’s xAI Sues Minnesota to Kill the US’s First AI Nudification Law

xAI, Elon Musk’s AI firm, filed a federal lawsuit Monday in opposition to Minnesota Legal professional Basic Keith Ellison to dam the nation’s first regulation focusing on AI “nudification”—software program that makes use of synthetic intelligence to digitally take away or alter clothes in actual images of actual folks—calling it “an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech and the instruments of visible expression in a careless try to ban nudification.”

The regulation is HF 1606. It makes any platform strictly liable—legally accountable no matter data or intent—if customers generate practical pictures of actual folks displaying physique components these folks by no means uncovered. Every violation can price as much as $500,000, per picture generated.

The grievance, filed in U.S. District Courtroom for the District of Minnesota, is not defending nudification precisely. “xAI accordingly doesn’t contest Minnesota’s curiosity in prohibiting the dissemination of artificially generated nude pictures of actual folks with out their consent,” the submitting states. “However the statute Minnesota enacted extends far past that aim, exposing a wide selection of protected speech to civil legal responsibility and authorities sanctions.”

The issue, xAI alleges, is how Minnesota outlined the time period. Per the lawsuit, the state borrowed “intimate half” from a felony sexual contact statute—one written for nonconsensual touching, not picture era. Below it, the internal thigh, buttocks, or breast all qualify equally. Producing a practical AI picture of a shirtless politician, a lady in a swimsuit, or a public determine on the seashore—even for political satire—might set off the regulation and the wonderful.

And there is no escape for platforms, per xAI’s arguments. “There isn’t any secure harbor for good-faith efforts of the supplier of general-purpose AI artistic instruments to keep away from harms,” the grievance reads. “Legal responsibility attaches even when the depicted individuals consented—or created the picture themselves—and even when the picture is rarely shared.”

There’s additionally no scienter (data of wrongdoing) requirement—a person sneaking previous an organization’s personal filters nonetheless makes the corporate totally liable underneath this regulation.

In 2026 alone the corporate suspended greater than 50,000 accounts and filed greater than 70,000 experiences to NCMEC (the Nationwide Middle for Lacking & Exploited Youngsters), resulting in at the least 244 arrests. None of that creates a protection underneath HF 1606.

The broader context issues right here. Grok’s picture instruments ran into trouble nearly instantly after their late July 2025 launch, producing deepfakes—AI-generated artificial pictures of actual folks—with easy textual content prompts, prompting regulatory probes throughout Europe, Australia, and a number of US states. Cities like Baltimore and three Tennessee minors individually sued xAI over Grok’s deepfake outputs. The corporate additionally challenged Colorado’s AI law in April on related First Modification grounds.

Minnesota handed HF 1606 132-1 within the Home and 65-0 within the Senate, after a person used social media images to generate sexual pictures of greater than 80 ladies he knew. The invoice’s champion within the Senate, Senator Erin Maye Quade, confirmed the regulation’s prohibition on consensual pictures was “intentional.”

The federal TAKE IT DOWN Act—signed by President Donald Trump in Might 2025—already covers nonconsensual intimate deepfakes, however requires proof of nonconsent and precise distribution, makes use of a narrower body-part definition, and contains carve-outs for training and medical content material. xAI argues that is the mannequin Minnesota ought to have adopted.

AG Ellison is not backing down. “AI nudification robs the goal of their dignity and may trigger immense hurt on an emotional, private, {and professional} stage,” he stated after the lawsuit was filed.

HF 1606 takes impact Saturday. xAI needs a federal choose to cease it earlier than then.