NEW YORK: X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, suffered a major global outage on Saturday, leaving millions of users across the world unable to access the app, website, or XPro dashboard.
The disruption marked the second major service failure in as many days, sparking frustration among users and raising concerns about the platform’s technical stability under Elon Musk’s leadership.
According to internet monitoring service Downdetector, more than 25,000 users in the United States and over 11,000 in the United Kingdom reported problems starting shortly after 1:00pm (ET).
By 1:45pm, the number of outage reports had spiked dramatically. Users said they were unable to see posts, with error messages including “Cannot retrieve posts at this time. Please try again later” and “Something went wrong. Try reloading.”
The international digital observatory NetBlocks.org confirmed the platform was experiencing widespread outages.
It stated that the disruptions were not linked to internet filtering or regional connectivity issues, suggesting a technical failure within the company’s systems.
The outage follows a previous incident on Thursday, when users were similarly locked out of X for several hours.
That event coincided with a fire at a data centre in Hillsboro Technology Park, Oregon, where X is believed to lease server space.
Data infrastructure company Digital Realty, which manages the affected site, confirmed to Oregon Live that the fire had been contained and all personnel were safely evacuated without injuries.
The company stated: “We continue to monitor the situation, prioritising the safety of our personnel, the integrity of the facility, and minimising customer impact.”
It is currently unclear whether the repeated outages are linked to the fire. X has not issued an official statement explaining the disruptions.
Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion (£32.5bn) and later rebranded it to X. Since the takeover, Musk has implemented sweeping changes at the company, including laying off around 80% of its workforce and reinstating numerous previously banned accounts.
Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower reported that X had around 162 million daily active users during the recent US election day—a high for the year—but saw a drop of five million users the following day.
Users frustrated with the outage took to rival platforms, including BlueSky, to express their dissatisfaction. “Twitter is fully down again lmfao,” one user wrote. Another commented: “Twitter is down again for a second day, that app is cooked.”
Musk, who also owns Starlink and SpaceX, has yet to comment publicly on the ongoing technical issues affecting X.
