xAI Sues Minnesota Over Deepfake Nudity Ban Law - Briefs…

On July 29, 2026, xAI, a subsidiary of SpaceX, initiated a federal lawsuit against the state of Minnesota to block a law that penalizes the generation of non-consensual explicit images. The legislation, which was enacted in April, imposes a $500,000 fine per occurrence for the creation of such deepfakes, a penalty xAI argues could reach $50 billion for a platform with 100,000 instances of prohibited content.

What happened

The Minnesota legislation was championed by state Senator Erin Maye Quade following a case involving a man who used social media photos of over 80 women to create non-consensual sexualized imagery and videos. Maye Quade has compared the statute to existing laws prohibiting the surreptitious taking of explicit photographs. In response, xAI’s legal team filed suit, arguing the law imposes an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech and the tools of visual expression. The company contends that the statute violates First Amendment safeguards and that the financial penalties are excessive.

xAI claims it already maintains technological safeguards and strict policies to prevent the generation of unapproved nude or explicit imagery, noting that it has previously taken legal action against users who attempt to bypass its blockers. This legal challenge mirrors a previous effort by the company in California, where a federal judge struck down a law that sought to limit AI-generated deepfakes in election contexts on First Amendment grounds. Beyond the Minnesota challenge, xAI currently faces a proposed class action lawsuit from unnamed plaintiffs alleging that its Grok chatbot and image-generation tools were utilized to produce and distribute child sexual abuse content using their authentic photos and videos. The plaintiffs in that case also allege that the company failed to report individuals who used the platform to "nudify" their images.