Minnesota fights xAI's challenge to state deepfake law HF-1606

Minnesota is fighting Elon Musk’s xAI over the company’s attempt to block HF-1606, a first-of-its-kind state law targeting AI tools that generate realistic sexual images of identifiable people.

In a Friday court filing, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison argued that xAI is unlikely to succeed in its constitutional challenge and has failed to show that enforcing the law would cause irreparable harm.

“With Grok Imagine, X.AI has created an unparalleled marketplace for digital sexual violence that poses virtually no barrier to entry,” Ellison wrote. “That marketplace, coupled with the functional capabilities of Grok Imagine, would doom Minnesota from the start if it could not direct its laws to the technology that makes digital sexual victimization possible in the first place.”

The law, enacted in April and which took effect August 1, prohibits platforms and software developers from allowing users to create realistic images showing intimate body parts that did not appear in the original image of an identifiable person.

Ahead of the implementation of the law, in July, xAI sued Ellison to block the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment and could apply to protected images, including shirtless men, swimmers, and political satire. Violations carry penalties of up to $500,000 per image.

"There is no safe harbor for good-faith efforts of the provider of general-purpose AI creative tools to avoid harms," xAI wrote in its complaint. "Liability attaches even if the depicted persons consented—or created the image themselves—and even if the image is never shared."

Minnesota passed the measure 132-1 in the House and 65-0 in the Senate after lawmakers heard reports of a man who used social media photos to create sexual images of more than 80 women he knew.

“Today, we led the nation protecting women, children and everyone in public life from the harm caused by AI nudification technology,” Senator Maye Quade, who led the push, said in a statement at the time. “Companies that make this technology available for free online and in app stores will no longer be allowed to enable predators who abuse and victimize adults and children with the click of a button.

The case now centers on whether the law regulates speech or technology.

Grok has also faced scrutiny over sexually explicit deepfakes.

In January, a watchdog estimated Grok generated more than 23,000 sexualized images of children over 11 days, prompting investigations in several countries.