A federal judge has denied xAI’s request for a temporary restraining order against Minnesota’s new ban on AI nudify apps, allowing the law to remain in effect while the underlying lawsuit proceeds.

U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank rejected the request, with his reasoning focused heavily on timing. xAI filed its lawsuit July 29, nearly three months after Minnesota’s governor signed the law, and only three days before the measure’s Aug. 1 effective date.

xAI has argued the law amounts to a content-based ban on free speech and targets legitimate tools of visual expression, adding that its own products already prohibit users from generating the kind of non-consensual sexual imagery the law is aimed at stopping. The company sought the restraining order to block enforcement while its broader constitutional challenge plays out in court.

Minnesota’s law, which took effect Aug. 1 despite the pending litigation, targets applications and services that can digitally alter images to remove clothing or create sexually explicit depictions of people without their consent, commonly known as nudify apps. The state has positioned the law as part of a broader push to curb AI-generated non-consensual intimate imagery, a growing concern for lawmakers nationwide.

A hearing on xAI’s request for a preliminary injunction, a separate and more substantial step than the denied temporary restraining order, is scheduled for Aug. 19. That hearing will determine whether the law remains blocked for xAI specifically while the case continues, or whether the company must comply with the ban in the meantime.

The case is one of several ongoing legal battles nationally over how far states can go in regulating AI-generated imagery without running afoul of free speech protections, an area of law still being tested as generative AI tools become more capable and widely available.