Hours after several outages on Monday left thousands of users unable to access X, Elon Musk claimed the platform was hit by a “massive cyberattack.” The X platform, also known as Twitter, experienced three separate outages, the most prolonged one lasting several hours and starting around 7 a.m. PT/10 a.m. ET.
Over 40,000 reports flooded Downdetector during the second outage, while around 35,000 complaints were received during the third outage. Users reported being unable to load the website at all.
Although there was a brief spike in reports earlier in the day that was quickly resolved, the second outage showed a sharper increase. The third outage, which lasted the longest, seemed to taper off by mid-morning.
By 10 a.m. PT, the platform appeared to be functioning again as reports on Downdetector steadily declined.
Neither X nor Musk provided additional updates about the suspected cyberattack that may have caused the disruptions. However, Musk addressed the issue during an appearance on Fox Business, suggesting the attack originated from Ukraine.
“We’re not exactly sure what happened,” Musk said during the Fox News interview. “But there was a massive cyberattack aimed at bringing down the X system, with IP addresses traced to the Ukraine area.”
Musk did not offer further details about the attack or its source but hinted at the Ukrainian government’s possible involvement.
His comments come during ongoing tensions surrounding Ukraine, as criticism of the country’s handling of the Russian invasion continues, particularly from former President Trump’s administration.
It’s worth noting that IP addresses can be masked to appear as though traffic is coming from specific regions.
By the time Musk’s interview aired at 4 p.m. ET, the platform seemed to recover, though nearly 2,000 users were still reporting issues on Downdetector.
Since Musk’s initial cyberattack claim, there have been no updates from official X accounts or himself. He has since tweeted memes, comments about his DOGE project, and responses to various posts.
Even Linda Yaccarino, Twitter’s acting CEO, has stayed relatively quiet, mostly responding to Musk’s tweets or retweets about DOGE.
