A federal appeals court has temporarily barred Minnesota from enforcing its ban on artificial intelligence tools that turn photos of real people into fake nude images, handing Elon Musk’s xAI an early win in its challenge to the first-in-the-nation law.
On Friday, the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted xAI’s request for an injunction that keeps the law on hold while the company’s appeal moves forward. The court’s brief order did not explain its reasoning, CBS News reported.
The order came after a lower court refused to pause the law. In September, U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank concluded that xAI had failed to show the law would cause it irreparable harm and that the company had waited too long to ask for emergency relief, Reuters reported.
What the law does
Minnesota lawmakers approved the measure this year with near-unanimous support. It passed the state Senate without opposition and was backed by all but one member of the House, CBS News reported. Gov. Tim Walz signed it in May, and it took effect Aug. 1.
Under the law, website operators, software developers and others may not let users generate realistic images that reveal intimate body parts missing from an original photo of an identifiable person, according to Reuters. Companies that use AI to create sexualized images of people without their consent can face civil penalties of up to $500,000, and victims can seek damages, CBS News reported.
Free speech challenge
xAI, which makes the Grok chatbot and the Grok Imagine image generator, sued three days before the law took effect. The company argues the statute “imposes an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech and the tools of visual expression,” CBS News and KSTP-TV reported.
In its appeal, xAI disputed the finding that it had delayed bringing suit and said Grok Imagine includes “rigorous protections” against producing nudified or sexualized images of real people, Reuters reported. The company has also begun suing users it accuses of evading Grok’s safeguards to make nonconsensual sexual images.
Minnesota had urged the appeals court to leave the law in place. The state has said it passed the measure to fight what it described as a “staggering amount” of AI-generated child sexual abuse material, citing products such as Grok Imagine, according to Reuters.
“We are disappointed in the Eighth Circuit’s decision and respectfully but strongly disagree with it,” a spokesperson for Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office said in a statement Sunday to WCCO-TV, adding that the office would continue to defend the law vigorously during the appeal.
State Sen. Erin Maye Quade, an Apple Valley member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the law’s chief author, called the ruling a “devastating reminder” that “men with money and power” place little value on the safety of women and children. She added that spreading nonconsensual sexual deepfakes is still illegal in Minnesota.
What’s next
The ban will stay unenforceable while the 8th Circuit considers xAI’s appeal of the lower court’s decision. The order does not resolve xAI’s underlying lawsuit, which claims the law violates the First Amendment and remains pending in federal court in Minnesota.
