Following a series of outages that occurred on Monday, March 10, users experienced difficulties on the social media platform.
In response, Elon Musk tweeted that X is still the victim of a massive cyberattack. “There was (and still is) a massive cyberattack on X,” Musk wrote on the platform. “We are being attacked every day, but it was done with a lot of resources. Or there is a large, coordinated group and/or country.”
The platform experienced at least three major outages throughout the day, the first of which occurred Monday morning. X users reported that the site was billed and received error messages instead. According to The Downdetector, a social media outage tracker, the first power outage resulted in approximately 17,000 outage reports in the US, followed by 40,000 during the second outage, and 35,000 in the latest wave of disruptions, as reported by Sky News.
In a second tweet, Musk reported a message in agreement with a user who claimed someone had tried to “silence” him with the platform. Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion, did not specify the exact type of attack, but suggested it could involve significant resources and likely referred to a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack.
This type of cyberattack overwhelms a location’s servers with massive amounts of traffic, causing them to crash. While X has experienced outages in the past, many of them were associated with the sweeping changes and layoffs that followed Musk’s acquisition of the company. However, this incident coincides with a broader market meltdown, in which Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, has suffered a significant hit to its stock price.
To compound matters, the cyberattack came after a string of physical attacks on Tesla dealerships across Europe and the US over the weekend. Musk, a controversial figure in global politics, has come under increasing criticism, particularly following his appointment as head of the controversial “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), a role focused on cutting jobs and spending within the US government.
So far, X has not released an official explanation for the outages, leaving users and IT security experts speculating about the company and the type of attack. Despite the lack of official information, the situation is attracting a lot of attention, with experts suggesting that the use of such massive resources could indicate a targeted strategy, such as a well-orchestrated DDOS attack, aimed at damaging the platform.
Meanwhile, the crisis continues to cast a shadow over the platform’s stability and daily operations. Users continue to complain about Dennien, while many wonder if X will be able to recover from this destabilizing series of events. The lack of an appropriate official response has created a climate of uncertainty that fuels theories about who may be behind the attack and what the long-term effects may be.
X’s difficulties add to a number of challenges for Musk, whose involvement has attracted both admiration and disapproval. His management of Twitter and Tesla has been the subject of global debate, and now his role as a central figure in the technology landscape appears to be under increasing scrutiny. The outcome of these events could influence not only Musk’s reputation, but also the future of the platforms he manages in a developing global context.
For now, there is uncertainty, and Musk continues to try to respond to the difficulties without providing clear details on how the attack is being addressed. X users and external observers continue to monitor the situation closely and look for answers that are not forthcoming at the moment.
