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A federal judge declined to block Minnesota's nudification ban, without reaching xAI's First Amendment argument
The order runs to two pages and turns entirely on when xAI brought its motion rather than on what the statute does.
Bottom line: The temporary restraining order was denied. No injunction issued, so nothing in this order disturbs the statute's scheduled 1 August 2026 effective date. The court did not reach the First Amendment question at all.
Who this affects: Platform and product counsel with Minnesota exposure, trust-and-safety leads, and litigators tracking challenges to state AI-content statutes. For what H.F. 1606 itself requires, see the separate statute entry linked below.
Effective date: Order dated 31 July 2026. The statute was scheduled to take effect 1 August 2026. Preliminary-injunction hearing set for 19 August 2026.
What changed: A challenge the tracker previously reported as undecided now has a first disposition. The emergency route failed and the preliminary-injunction motion was set down on an expedited schedule.
Analysis: The stated ground is narrow. The court denied relief because the motion arrived "nearly three months after the law was signed, and only three days before the law is set to take effect." The ground is timing alone. The order contains no assessment of the constitutional claim.
Primary sources: Order, D. Minn. 31 July 2026 (PDF)
- Instrument (EN)
- Order denying temporary restraining order (Doc. No. 21)
- Authority
- United States District Court, District of Minnesota. Donovan W. Frank, United States District Judge
- Jurisdiction
- United States, Minnesota
- Case
- X.AI LLC v. Keith Ellison, in his official capacity, as Attorney General of Minnesota, Civil No. 26-3425 (DWF/DTS)
- Status
- TRO denied. Preliminary-injunction motion pending.
- Bindingness
- A binding order in this case. It resolves no constitutional question.
- Effective / next deadline
- Hearing on the preliminary injunction, 19 August 2026 at 9:30 a.m.
- Primary source
- https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.235231/gov.uscourts.mnd.235231.21.0.pdf
What the court actually decided
The background to the challenge is covered in our earlier entry on xAI's First Amendment claim. In this motion (Doc. No. 11) xAI sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction barring enforcement of "Minnesota's Nudification Ban, H.F. 1606, 94th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Minn. 2026)" against it, asking for an order before the law was set to take effect on 1 August 2026.
Per the order, the defendant "opposes the request for a temporary restraining order and asks the Court to hear the motion for preliminary injunction on the regular schedule."
The court's ruling is one sentence: "The Court respectfully denies the request for a temporary restraining order before tomorrow."
The order does not enjoin the statute, so nothing in it stops the 1 August 2026 effective date from applying on its own terms.
The stated ground was the timing of the motion
The court gave a single ground, and it is about timing: "xAI filed the motion on July 29, 2026, nearly three months after the law was signed, and only three days before the law is set to take effect. Such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate."
For that proposition it cited Kohls v. Ellison, No. 24-cv-3754, 2025 WL 66765, at *8 (D. Minn. Jan. 10, 2025), with the court's own parenthetical describing it as "finding that an action challenging a statute could have been brought on the day it was enacted and therefore that delay in seeking relief cut against a preliminary injunction."
Nothing in the two pages addresses whether the ban is constitutional, whether image generation is protected expression, or whether the statute is drawn too broadly. Those arguments are still to be heard.
What happens next, and when
The court denied the TRO and set the already-pending preliminary-injunction motion down for hearing. The order records that the court "directed the parties to meet and confer on a potential agreement to maintain the status quo so that the Court could hear the motion on a regular schedule" and that "the parties were unable to agree." It concluded that "an expedited schedule is warranted."
The response was due 12 August 2026, the reply 17 August 2026, and the hearing is set for 19 August 2026 at 9:30 a.m. in the Edward J. Devitt Courtroom in St. Paul.
The preliminary-injunction motion is the next scheduled stage at which the merits may be addressed.
The practical consequence
For anyone with Minnesota exposure, the sourced fact from this order is narrow: no order blocked the statute before its scheduled 1 August date. Compliance planning that was waiting on an injunction has nothing from this order to wait for, though the preliminary-injunction motion is still live. For who and what the statute reaches, work from the statute entry linked below rather than from this order.
Kohls was a decision of the same district and names the same Attorney General as defendant. The order does not say who decided it, and we make no claim about that.
For anyone briefing a board or a client on this, the accurate sentence is that the emergency motion failed on timing and the constitutional challenge is undecided. Anything stronger overstates a two-page order.
What we did not report
We have opened only this order. We are not describing what H.F. 1606 requires, because the order does not set it out, and we are not characterising xAI's complaint or its products, because they are not in this document.
We also have no ruling after 31 July 2026. If the preliminary-injunction motion has been decided since, that is a separate development and this piece does not speak to it.
Treat this order as procedural. It leaves the statute's scheduled 1 August 2026 effective date undisturbed, it refuses emergency relief because the motion came late, and it says nothing about the First Amendment question, which is scheduled to be argued on 19 August 2026.
Source File
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.235231/gov.uscourts.mnd.235231.21.0.pdf
Open the two-page order at CourtListener and confirm the caption, the 31 July 2026 date, the single denial sentence, and the three numbered scheduling paragraphs.
The Court respectfully denies the request for a temporary restraining order before tomorrow. xAI filed the motion on July 29, 2026, nearly three months after the law was signed, and only three days before the law is set to take effect. Such a delay in bringing the action and the motion suggests that harm is not immediate. ยท Donovan W. Frank, United States District Judge, 31 July 2026
FAQ
Did the court rule on the First Amendment question?
No. The order does not address the merits. It denies emergency relief on the ground that the motion was brought late, and it sets the preliminary-injunction motion down for argument.
Did this order stop the law from taking effect?
No. xAI asked for an order before the law was set to take effect on 1 August 2026 and the court declined to grant one, so nothing in this order disturbs that scheduled date.
Why was the emergency motion denied?
Timing. The court noted the motion was filed on 29 July 2026, nearly three months after the law was signed and three days before it was set to take effect, and said that delay suggests the harm is not immediate.
What happens next, and when?
The court is hearing the matter as a preliminary-injunction motion on an expedited schedule. The response was due 12 August 2026, the reply 17 August 2026, and the hearing is set for 19 August 2026 at 9:30 a.m. in St. Paul.
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