Elon Musk’s X social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has suffered multiple outages on Monday.
According to the tracking website Downdetector, users began experiencing problems logging onto X from 9am, and then again around 1.30pm through to 5.45pm, with problems and outages still being recorded at the time of writing.
The platform has suffered multiple outages under the ownership of Musk. For example there was a global outage in December 2022, another outage in March 2023 ( allegedly caused by a single engineer, who had been left overseeing a major change), and another outage in December 2023.
DDoS attack?
The current outage at X means that for many users around the world, the app wouldn’t load properly, or just times out.
Elon Musk posted on X that the platform is being subjected to “massive cyberattack.”
“There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X,” Musk tweeted. “We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved. Tracing …”
Musk did not provide evidence for his claim, but if true, it suggests the platform could be experiencing a large scale Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
Controversial actions
Musk famously purchased Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, and then implemented a chaotic cost cutting exercise that reduced the workforce by 80 percent from 7,500 employees to 1,300 workers, and just 550 full-time engineers, by January 2023.
But now Musk is heavily involved in the administration of Donald Trump, and heads DOGE, the organisation tasked with cutting the US federal budget.
As a result of Musk’s recent controversial actions, including an alleged Nazi salute (twice), and his support for a far right leader in Germany, Tesla shares have plummeted.
Even worse, sales of Tesla EVs in Europe have dramatically declined.
Indeed, Elon Musk’s political rhetoric has triggered a recent number of protests at Tesla stores and service centres, and left wing activists even projected an image of Elon Musk’s infamous raised-arm salute and the word “Heil” onto the outside of his Tesla plant in Germany.