A U.S. District Judge, Donovan Frank, has denied xAI's request to block Minnesota's upcoming ban on 'nudify' apps, which allow users to alter images to make them nude. The ruling was influenced by the timing of xAI's lawsuit, filed shortly before the law's effective date on August 1, 2026. Frank noted that the delay indicated no immediate harm. This ruling permits the law to take effect as the lawsuit continues, where xAI argues the ban is overly broad and seeks less restrictive alternatives. The ban is notable as it is the first of its kind in the U.S. and follows incidents involving non-consensual images circulated via xAI's Grok chatbot.

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In Brief

Posted:

1:26 PM PDT · August 1, 2026

The Grok logo appears on a phone and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop. Image Credits: Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto / Getty Images

Anthony Ha

Judge denies xAI’s request to block Minnesota ban on ‘nudify’ apps

Despite a lawsuit from xAI, a Minnesota ban on apps that allow users to “nudify” images can move forward, according to NBC News.

U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank’s ruling focused as much on the timing of xAI’s lawsuit as on the substance of the law itself. Frank wrote that xAI filed its request for a temporary restraining order “on July 29, 2026, nearly three months after the law was signed, and only three days before the law is set to take effect” on August 1.

“Such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate,” Frank said.

This isn’t the end of xAI’s lawsuit against the ban; it only means that the law can take effect while the lawsuit proceeds. In the suit, xAI argued that the ban — the first of its kind in the United States — is “overinclusive” and that “there are far less restrictive alternatives that function to achieve the same ends.”

Earlier this year, users of Elon Musk’s social media platform X (both X and xAI, are now part of SpaceX) used xAI’s Grok chatbot to flood the platform with non-consensual sexualized images, leading to investigations and bans.

Topics

AI, Government & Policy, SpaceX, xAI

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