Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, stumbled on Monday, leaving thousands of users in the United States and the United Kingdom staring at blank screens. The outage hit suddenly, disrupting conversations and news feeds, but the service appears to be running smoothly again.
The trouble began early in the day. According to Downdetector.com, a website that tracks online service interruptions, reports of glitches spiked rapidly. At the height of the problems, about 40,000 users in the U.S. flagged issues with the app and website. The problems were not limited to American users; across the Atlantic, people in the UK filed more than 11,000 reports around 8:35 a.m. EST. For a short time, “X is down” became a trending topic on other platforms as people looked for answers.
Fortunately, the blackout didn’t last all day. By late morning, the number of complaints dropped significantly. By 10:45 a.m. EST, American reports on Downdetector fell to just over 700. This sharp decline suggests that engineers at the company identified and fixed the bug relatively quickly. It is important to remember that tracking sites like Downdetector only count people who take the time to submit a report. The actual number of people who couldn’t refresh their timelines was likely much higher.
When reached out to ask what went wrong, X did not reply. Since Musk took over the company formerly known as Twitter, the platform has cut much of its public relations staff and rarely comments on technical hiccups.
This technical stumble happens during a busy time for Musk’s business dealings. He continues to shuffle the structure of his various companies. Recently, he announced that SpaceX, his rocket company, acquired his artificial intelligence startup, xAI. This move follows a significant change last year when he folded X into xAI through a share swap. While Musk focuses on tying his empire of space travel, AI, and social media closer together, users are just hoping the app stays online.
