US justice department steps in on behalf of xAI in Colorado regulation case | Trump administration

The US justice department said on Friday it had intervened in a case in which Elon Musk’s xAI challenged a Colorado law aimed at regulating artificial intelligence systems.

In its intervention, the justice department said the law violated the 14th amendment’s equal protection guarantee by allowing some discrimination intended to promote diversity while requiring companies to protect against unintended discriminatory effects.

“Laws requiring AI companies to infuse their products with woke DEI ideology are illegal,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said in a statement.

The Colorado attorney general’s office declined to comment. In the lawsuit filed earlier this month in U.S. district court in Colorado, xAI sought to block the state from implementing Senate Bill 24-205, which is scheduled to go into effect on June 30. The law imposes disclosure and mitigation requirements on developers of “high-risk” AI systems used in decisions involving employment, housing, education, healthcare and financial services.

Musk’s artificial intelligence firm said the law violates the first amendment by restricting how developers design artificial intelligence systems and compelling speech on controversial public issues.

Federal intervention is turning a single-company legal battle into a direct conflict between the Trump administration and Colorado over state-level AI regulation. Rather than leaving states to create their own plans, the Trump administration is pushing for a single legal framework governing AI that could be applied uniformly across the country.