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A federal appeals court on Friday, October 2, temporarily blocked Minnesota from enforcing its law restricting AI-generated sexual images while Elon Musk’s xAI challenges the statute in court. The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted xAI’s request for an injunction pending appeal, giving the company interim relief as judges review a lower court’s refusal to pause the law.
The order does not decide whether the law violates the First Amendment, and it does not end xAI’s lawsuit. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office said it was disappointed and would continue defending the statute. The appeals court’s decision puts enforcement on hold for now; the underlying constitutional dispute remains unresolved.
What the Minnesota law prohibits
The statute took effect on August 1 and applies to website operators, software developers and others who allow users to create realistic images depicting an intimate body part not shown in an original image of an identifiable person. Minnesota adopted the measure to address AI tools that can generate fabricated sexual imagery, including images made without the depicted person’s consent.
The law is framed around the provision of tools or services that enable this kind of image alteration, rather than solely the later distribution of an image. The exact practical reach of the statute—and whether its language sweeps in constitutionally protected expression—forms part of the dispute between the state and xAI.
xAI’s First Amendment challenge
xAI argues that the law restricts speech protected by the U.S. Constitution. In its appeal, the company disputed the district judge’s conclusion that it had waited too long to seek emergency relief and said its Grok Imagine image-generation tool has safeguards against creating nudified or sexualized images of real people.
Reuters reported that xAI has also begun suing users it accuses of evading Grok’s technical controls to create sexual images of people without consent. The company did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on Friday’s appeals-court ruling.
How the case reached the appeals court
xAI sued Minnesota in July, shortly before the law was due to take effect, and sought an order preventing enforcement. U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank rejected an initial request for a temporary restraining order on July 31, citing the timing of the company’s request. The law took effect the following day.
Frank denied xAI’s request for a preliminary injunction in September, finding that the company had not shown it would suffer irreparable harm and had delayed bringing its challenge. xAI then appealed and asked the Eighth Circuit to block enforcement while the appeal proceeded. Friday’s injunction reverses the immediate practical effect of the district court’s decision but does not resolve the merits of the lawsuit.
Minnesota says the measure addresses serious harms
Ellison’s office said it would defend the law as the appeal moves forward. Spokesperson John Stiles described the statute as targeting AI products that generate sexual images that harm and harass people. The state has argued that the measure is needed to combat the spread of nonconsensual imagery and AI-generated child sexual abuse material.
Those claims represent Minnesota’s justification for the law; they are not findings by the appeals court that the statute is constitutional. Likewise, xAI’s assertions that its safeguards are rigorous and that the law restricts protected expression remain the company’s legal arguments, not conclusions established by the appellate ruling.
What happens next
The Eighth Circuit’s order is interim relief: Minnesota cannot enforce the challenged law while the appeal proceeds, but the court has not struck the statute down. The central question—whether the law’s restrictions are compatible with the First Amendment—will remain before the courts.
The case therefore leaves both sides with further litigation ahead. Minnesota says it will continue defending the law, while xAI is pursuing its appeal. The available reporting did not establish a final decision date or describe the appeals court’s reasoning in detail, so the scope and duration of the pause beyond the pending appeal remain uncertain.
