Appeals court pauses Minnesota AI image law during xAI suit

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily halted enforcement of Minnesota’s law restricting AI-generated intimate images while xAI’s First Amendment challenge proceeds. The injunction gives the company interim relief, but does not decide whether the law is constitutional or resolve the case on its merits. The measure, which took effect August 1, 2026, prohibits website operators and software developers from enabling users to create realistic images depicting intimate body parts absent from an original photo of an identifiable person. The law targets so-called nudification, in which an AI tool alters a real person’s image to depict nudity or sexual content without consent. Minnesota urged the appeals court to leave the law in force. The state argued it was needed to address what it called a staggering amount of AI-generated child mistreatment material produced by tools such as xAI’s Grok Imagine. The Minnesota attorney general’s office said it was disappointed by the injunction and would continue defending the law. xAI argues that the statute restricts speech protected by the First Amendment.