Elon Musk’s xAI sues Colorado over AI consumer protection law
An artificial intelligence platform that generated messages last year describing itself as “MechaHitler” while highlighting individuals’ Jewish surnames says Colorado has no legal basis for protections against “algorithmic discrimination” by AI systems.
Elon Musk’s xAI, which owns the social media platform X and the generative AI chatbot Grok, sued Colorado in federal court Thursday, alleging that a state consumer-protection law passed in 2024, Senate Bill 24-205, violates the company’s constitutional rights. SB-205 is scheduled to take effect in June.
“Despite being billed as a consumer-protection measure, (the law) lacks any statement of purpose or legislative findings evidencing the ‘algorithmic discrimination’ that the bill prohibits,” argues xAI’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado. “It nevertheless imposes onerous, nationwide requirements that impermissibly burden xAI’s constitutional rights.”
Touted by Democrats in the Colorado General Assembly as a first-in-the-nation comprehensive AI law, SB-205 sets anti-discrimination guardrails for businesses that use the technology in decisions on consequential matters such as loans, employment, insurance policies and school admissions. Governor Jared Polis signed the bill into law in May 2024, but issued a signing statement at the time expressing “reservations” about the law’s potential “to tamper innovation and deter competition in an open market.”
The xAI lawsuit approvingly quotes those comments by Polis, and similar concerns expressed by five other top Colorado Democrats — U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, Attorney General Phil Weiser, U.S. Representatives Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen, and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston — who successfully pressured the Legislature last year to delay the law’s effective date. A working group convened by Polis announced a policy framework last month for potential revisions to the law, but formal legislation has yet to be introduced at the Capitol.
Musk, the world’s richest person and a close ally of President Donald Trump, purchased X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, and routinely uses the platform to endorse white nationalist rhetoric, the great replacement theory and other far-right conspiracist claims. He describes Grok, the platform’s integrated AI chatbot, as the answer to “woke” alternatives like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
In July 2025, shortly after an update publicized as instructing Grok to “not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect,” the platform generated a barrage of antisemitic replies to users praising Adolf Hitler and highlighting surnames of Ashkenazi Jewish origin. The chatbot was soon temporarily taken offline. Musk has repeatedly, publicly intervened to adjust the Grok model to satisfy users who want the content it generates to be more right-wing, the New York Times reported last year.
xAI’s lawsuit argues that SB-205 would “substitute Colorado’s political preferences for the national economic and security imperative of American AI dominance.” It seeks an injunction blocking SB-205 before it takes effect on June 30.