Eighth Circuit pauses Minnesota's AI nudification ban

The St. Louis-based US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit granted Elon Musk's xAI an injunction pending appeal on October 2, 2026, pausing Minnesota's first-of-its-kind ban on AI "nudification" tools while the company's First Amendment challenge continues.

The order is a single sentence: "Appellant's motion for injunction pending appeal is granted." It is dated October 2 and signed by the clerk, Susan E. Bindler, and it gives no reasons. The order names the appellant as SpaceXAI LLC and the appellee as Minnesota Attorney General Keith M. Ellison in his official capacity. Bloomberg Law cites the case as xAI, LLC v. Ellison, 8th Cir., No. 26-2806. Nothing in the order decides whether the law is constitutional.

The law, HF 1606, was presented to Governor Tim Walz on May 6, 2026, signed on May 7 and took effect on August 1. Codified at Minnesota Statutes 325E.91, it bars anyone who owns or controls a website, application, software, program or other service from letting a user nudify an image or video, or from doing it on a user's behalf, and it bars advertising such a service. "Nudify" means altering or generating an image or video to depict an "intimate part" not shown in the original of an identifiable person, realistically enough that a reasonable person would believe the part is theirs.

The attorney general may seek a civil penalty of up to $500,000 for each unlawful access, download or use, and a depicted person may sue for compensatory damages of up to three times actual damages, punitive damages, injunctive relief and attorney fees. The law keeps Section 230 protections in place and exempts services that require the user's "technical skill," defined as substantial individualized technological or artistic judgment by a human creator.

xAI filed on July 27, days before the law took effect, CBS News Minnesota reports. US District Judge Donovan W. Frank denied a temporary restraining order on July 31 and a preliminary injunction on September 4, finding that xAI had not shown irreparable harm and had waited too long to seek emergency relief, according to the Star Tribune. The Eighth Circuit's order overturns that refusal for the length of the appeal, so enforcement is on hold until the merits are decided.

In its complaint, xAI said the law "imposes an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech and the tools of visual expression." The company says it does not dispute Minnesota's right to ban non-consensual nude images of real people and that its products already block them, but argues the definitions reach benign pictures, including people in shorts, men without shirts and competitive swimmers, Reclaim The Net reports. Its lawyers told the district court the law offers no leeway "regardless of how many mitigations the provider has in place," the Star Tribune reports. The First Amendment Lawyers Association filed a brief supporting xAI.

Minnesota is not conceding. "We are disappointed in the Eighth Circuit's decision and respectfully but strongly disagree with it," a spokesperson for Ellison's office told CBS News Minnesota. In a statement carried by the Star Tribune, the office said: "Minnesota's nudification ban outlaws AI technology products from generating sexual images that harm and harass people in the vilest way possible. We will continue to vigorously defend the law as the appeal proceeds and we are proud to do so." Ellison said after the September ruling that he was "extremely proud to be defending this law," CBS News reported.

Senator Erin Maye Quade, the law's chief author, said the ruling was "another devastating reminder of how little the safety of women and children mean to men with money and power," in a statement reported by KAAL-TV. Minnesota's Senate passed the bill unanimously and its House passed it with one vote against, per CBS News.

Minnesota's law followed a case in which a man used photos of about 80 Minnesota women to make pornographic images and video, according to a Minnesota House session report from February 2026. Separately, xAI faces lawsuits alleging that images of children were used to create child sexual abuse material through its Grok Imagine tool, Bloomberg Law reports. Those are allegations in filings, not findings.

For creators, the open question is how far a state can go in regulating a tool rather than its output. Minnesota's law puts liability on the provider that offers the capability, not on the user, and its ceiling of $500,000 per violation is unusual among state deepfake statutes, the Star Tribune reports. If the Eighth Circuit upholds the law, other states drafting provider rules have a tested model to copy; if the court reverses, the technical-skill exemption that xAI calls too narrow becomes the starting point for narrower statutes. Either outcome bears on any hosted generator that accepts a photo of a person and returns an image, not only on xAI's tools.

Next: the Eighth Circuit decides xAI's appeal on the merits, with Ellison's office defending the law in the meantime. The October 2 order sets no date for that ruling.