Elon Musk says a massive cyberattack caused Monday’s X outages.
In a post on Monday, the owner confirmed that his social media platform was defending against the cyberattack.
“There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X,” Mr. Musk wrote. “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.”
Later that day, in an interview on Fox News, Mr. Musk said the attack came from IP addresses “originating in the Ukraine area.” He has provided no evidence that Monday’s outages were the result of a cyberattack or that the alleged attack originated in the war-torn country.
X users began reporting outages Monday, with Downdetector recording around 20,000 outages at 5:30 a.m. Outages dropped off in the later part of the morning until spiking again at around 9:30 a.m. Outages continued into the afternoon, even after Mr. Musk confirmed the issue.
Monday’s outages were some of the most persistent X has ever seen. Since Mr. Musk took over the site in 2022, the platform has experienced waves of outages, with some users blaming the issue on Mr. Musk’s employee cuts.
Still, a cyberattack on X is possible. Mr. Musk’s position in the Trump White House could make his social media site an attractive target for cybercriminals. If his claims about a cyberattack are substantiated, it could hinder his plans to transform X into an “everything app” that includes payment services.
