Judge lets Minnesota AI nudification ban take effect, denying xAI a restraining order

A federal judge on July 31, 2026 refused to block Minnesota’s ban on AI “nudification” apps, denying Elon Musk’s xAI a temporary restraining order and clearing the first-in-the-nation law to take effect the next day.

U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank ruled that xAI waited nearly three months after the law was signed before suing, then filed just three days before the August 1 effective date. That timing undercut the company’s claim it faced irreparable harm, according to the Minnesota Attorney General’s office.

The statute, HF 1606, passed the legislature 197-1 and carries civil penalties of up to $500,000 per violation. It targets apps that generate synthetic nude or sexually explicit images of real people without consent. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is defending the law, said the apps have “been used to generate child sexual abuse materials and harass people in the vilest ways imaginable.”

The ruling is a setback for xAI, which runs the Grok chatbot and its image-generation tools, in one of the first legal tests of a state limit on generative-image software. xAI has argued the ban is unconstitutional. Frank’s order addresses only the emergency request, not the underlying merits, so the constitutional fight continues.

A hearing on xAI’s request for a preliminary injunction is set for August 19, with opposition briefing due August 12 and xAI’s reply due August 17. Until a judge rules otherwise, the ban stands, and companies distributing nudification tools to Minnesota users face exposure to the $500,000-per-violation penalty.