Appeals court pauses Minnesota AI nudification law in xAI case

On Oct. 2, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit granted xAI an injunction putting Minnesota's HF 1606 anti-nudification law on hold while the company appeals a Sept. 4 district-court denial. Reuters, via MPR News, and Law360 reported the Friday order is temporary and does not decide the merits. The Aug. 1 law bars covered operators from allowing users to create realistic intimate images of an identifiable person that were not in the original photo. xAI says Grok Imagine has protections against creating nudified images of real people; Minnesota had urged the court to leave the law in force.