xAI filed a federal constitutional challenge on 27 July against Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, seeking to block HF 1606 — the first US law banning AI "nudification" tools — before it takes effect on 1 August 2026. The 39-page complaint is docketed as X.AI LLC v. Ellison, No. 0:26-cv-03425, and had drawn no press coverage at the time of writing.
What the law does
Codified at Minn. Stat. § 325E.91, the statute carries civil penalties of up to $500,000 per violation through the attorney general's enforcement powers, alongside a separate private right of action offering treble damages, punitive damages, injunctive relief and fees. The product in the crosshairs is Grok Imagine. xAI says it will restrict Grok Imagine's image-editing features in Minnesota when the law takes effect.
The actual legal argument
The complaint does not defend nudification. It attacks two features of the drafting. First, the statute imposes strict liability — no knowledge, intent or purpose element, and no safe harbour — so a developer is liable regardless of what it did to prevent misuse. Second, its definition of "intimate part" is borrowed from a criminal sexual-contact statute and reaches the inner thigh, buttocks and breast, which xAI argues sweeps in ordinary images of people in shorts, swimsuits or no shirt.
Three ways this is being told wrong
It is not a ruling: nothing has been decided, no preliminary injunction motion had been docketed, and this is day one of a lawsuit. It is not a claim to a right to generate nudified images — the complaint expressly concedes Minnesota's interest, states that xAI bans the practice, and notes that xAI has itself sued users who circumvented its blockers. And "xAI sues Minnesota" is loose: the defendant is Ellison in his official capacity, which is the standard vehicle for a pre-enforcement constitutional challenge.
Why the case is bigger than the product
Minnesota chose to regulate the tool rather than the person who makes or spreads the image. That is the model roughly a dozen states are drafting from, and it is the model that has never been tested against the First Amendment. Whatever the District of Minnesota decides will be the template — which is presumably why xAI moved before the effective date rather than waiting to be enforced against.