On October 2, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit granted xAI an injunction pending appeal, temporarily preventing Minnesota from enforcing its AI nudification law against the company while the appeal proceeds. The order leaves the constitutional dispute unresolved.
What the injunction changes
An injunction pending appeal is temporary relief while a case continues through the appeals process. The Eighth Circuit’s order applies to enforcement against xAI. It came after U.S. District Judge Donovan W. Frank denied xAI’s request for a preliminary injunction on September 4, 2026.
What Minnesota’s law covers
The Minnesota law concerns services that let users access technology capable of generating realistic images or videos of identifiable people by adding intimate body parts absent from the original image or video.
Why xAI and Minnesota disagree
xAI argues that the law reaches protected expression, including consensual or private images and artistic, political, educational, or satirical material. Minnesota argues that the law addresses a product capability associated with harm; in the case of Grok Imagine, the state characterizes that capability as a product feature rather than protected speech by xAI.
