File photo – Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s company xAI has sued Minnesota over the state’s first-in-the-nation law that bans “nudification” technology on websites and apps, potentially providing a test for how far states can go in constitutionally regulating the use of AI.Musk’s company sued Monday in federal court, days before the law is set to take effect Saturday and make Minnesota the first state to try to outlaw the increasingly proliferating technology that lets people use AI to create fake nude images of real people. The law was signed in May.In the 38-page lawsuit, xAI – whose AI model chatbot and image generator Grok is available on the social media platform known as X, formerly Twitter, and elsewhere – said it does not contest the state’s interest in banning the distribution of AI-generated nude images of real people without their consent. But it said Minnesota’s law “extends far beyond that goal,” banning many constitutionally protected images and video and subjecting the company to a penalty of $500,000 per violation.The lawsuit argues there is no “safe harbour” provision for companies that make good-faith efforts to prevent such images from being created by users, and that it covers images that were consented to by the depicted person. It also says the law’s definition of “intimate part” is overly broad, covering body parts that are routinely displayed in public.State laws over election deepfakes have had mixed results in courts. California’s law was blocked over First Amendment speech protections. Minnesota’s law has so far survived a 2025 court challenge by Musk’s company.
