This April, the US Department of Justice joined Elon Musk’s xAI in suing the state of Colorado to kill its AI anti-discrimination law.

 

When the federal government sides with a billionaire against a state trying to protect its residents from AI discrimination, that’s not only a Colorado story. That’s everyone’s story.

 

The justice department’s lawsuit is part of a coordinated federal effort to reframe AI consumer protections as ideological overreach. In July 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order on “preventing woke AI”, equating bias mitigation measures to a leftist “woke” agenda that suppresses free speech and truth. The federal National Policy Framework launched in March included a push to pre-empt state laws on AI, with Colorado’s law targeted. The justice department’s intervention in Colorado marks the first time the federal government has sought to intervene in a lawsuit challenging a state AI law.