Key points
- Users in Asia, Europe, and North America could not access to X: Downdetector
- There are more than 8,000 outage reports from UK users
- X is still trying to figure out exactly what happened: Elon Musk
SAN FRANCISCO, United States: Elon Musk has claimed X was hit Monday by a major cyberattack, raising questions as to whether the billionaire is being targeted or his decision to gut staff at what was once Twitter is haunting the social network.
Reports of problems with X started early Monday, with users in Asia, Europe, and North America saying they could not access the platform, AFP cited the Downdetector tracking site as saying.
“There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X,” Musk said in a post on the platform, which was working sporadically as the day wore on.
The SpaceX and Tesla owner also blamed a cyberattack, although he provided no evidence, for crashing the site, AFP reported.
Musk shared a post from an account called DogeDesigner suggesting that the latest cyberattack was another burst of animosity towards him, in line with recent protests against the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that he leads and vandalization of Tesla facilities, AFP reported.
Still trying to figure out
AFP reported that Musk speculated that such an attack would take tremendous resources, and that it was the work of a country or large coordinated group.
During an interview on Fox Business, he alleged that computers used in the attack appeared to have digital addresses in the Ukraine area and that X was still trying to figure out exactly what happened.
BBC also reported that Musk’s social media platform X, experienced massive outages throughout Monday morning that impacted thousands of users in the US and UK.
There were more than 8,000 outage reports from UK users shortly before 14:00 GMT, following a brief but notable surge of reports on Monday morning, according to British media.
The outage came as platform monitor Downdetector said it had seen tens of thousands of reports from US users of technical issues affecting the platform, according to Westen media reports.
AFP reported that after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022, the majority of employees left or were fired, raising concerns about whether staffing was in place to keep the platform safe and stable.
