Judge denies xAI's bid to block Minnesota's 'nudify' app ban
A federal judge has ruled that Minnesota's first-of-its-kind ban on apps that can create nude images of people without consent can take effect while xAI's legal challenge proceeds, citing the company's delayed filing.
A Minnesota law banning "nudify" apps will go into effect as scheduled, after a federal judge refused to temporarily block it. The ruling came in response to a request from xAI, the artificial intelligence company, which had sued to halt the law.
U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank denied xAI's motion for a temporary restraining order, emphasizing that the company waited too long to seek emergency relief. xAI filed its request on July 29, 2026, nearly three months after the law was signed and just three days before it was set to take effect on August 1. "Such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate," Frank wrote.
The decision does not end xAI's lawsuit. The law, which is the first of its kind in the United States, can now go into effect while the legal proceedings continue. In its suit, xAI argued that the ban is "overinclusive" and that "there are far less restrictive alternatives that function to achieve the same ends."
The law targets apps that let users "nudify" images, a practice that came under scrutiny earlier this year when users of Elon Musk's social media platform X used xAI's Grok chatbot to generate and flood the platform with non-consensual sexualized images. That incident led to investigations and bans. Both X and xAI are now part of SpaceX.
