Elon Musk's xAI Sues Minnesota to Kill the US's First AI Nudification Regulation – Decrypt

xAI, Elon Musk’s AI firm, filed a federal lawsuit Monday in opposition to Minnesota Legal professional Normal Keith Ellison to dam the nation’s first regulation concentrating on AI “nudification”—software program that makes use of synthetic intelligence to digitally take away or alter clothes in actual images of actual individuals—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 information or intent—if customers generate practical photographs of actual individuals exhibiting physique elements these individuals 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 photographs of actual individuals with out their consent,” the submitting states. “However the statute Minnesota enacted extends far past that objective, 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 prison sexual contact statute—one written for nonconsensual touching, not picture era. Beneath it, the interior thigh, buttocks, or breast all qualify equally. Producing a sensible AI picture of a shirtless politician, a lady in a swimsuit, or a public determine on the seaside—even for political satire—may set off the regulation and the advantageous.

And there is no escape for platforms, per xAI’s arguments. “There isn’t any protected harbor for good-faith efforts of the supplier of general-purpose AI inventive 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 isn’t shared.”

There’s additionally no scienter (information of wrongdoing) requirement—a consumer 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 studies to NCMEC (the Nationwide Middle for Lacking & Exploited Youngsters), resulting in no less than 244 arrests. None of that creates a protection underneath HF 1606.

The broader context issues right here. Grok’s picture instruments bumped into hassle virtually instantly after their late July 2025 launch, producing deepfakes—AI-generated artificial photographs of actual individuals—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 regulation in April on comparable 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 photographs 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 photographs was “intentional.”

The federal TAKE IT DOWN Act—signed by President Donald Trump in Could 2025—already covers nonconsensual intimate deepfakes, however requires proof of nonconsent and precise distribution, makes use of a narrower body-part definition, and consists of 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} degree,” he stated after the lawsuit was filed.

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