
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Elon Musk’s social media platform X experienced several outages on Monday morning, leaving some users unable to load the site.
Nearly 40,000 users reported problems with the platform around 10 a.m. ET, according to the analytics platform Downdetector, which gathers data from users who spot glitches and report them to the service. Around 28,000 people were experiencing issues as of 11:30 a.m. ET.
When X resumed loading for users Monday afternoon, Musk said the company had suffered a “massive cyberattack.” Musk did not provide any evidence, and CNBC could not independently verify that a cyberattack took place.
“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” Musk wrote in a post. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”
X did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Musk acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022. The Tesla CEO slashed the company’s headcount by about 80% from 7,500 employees to 1,300 workers, and just 550 full-time engineers, by January 2023.
X has experienced several large-scale outages since Musk’s takeover. Users reported problems with the platform in December 2022 and with the site’s desktop app in July 2023, for instance.
The timing of the X outage couldn’t have been worse for NFL fans, who rely on the service for news updates. The first day of the NFL’s free agency tampering window began at 12 p.m. ET with the service down, sending fans searching for other options such as linear TV and Bluesky to get their news on player signings.
— CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed reporting.
Watch: Elon Musk on X subscriptions: ‘Free speech isn’t exactly free it costs a little bit’