Elon Musk’s social platform X experienced a brief and widespread outage in the United States on Saturday morning (May 24th), leaving tens of thousands of users unable to log in or access the platform. The incident gradually subsided within an hour, but as of now, the platform has not provided an official explanation or detailed information regarding the cause.
According to data from the website outage monitoring platform Downdetector, as of 8:39 AM ET (12:39 GMT), over 25,000 users had reported being unable to access the X platform. Reports indicated that the issues first arose around 8:30 AM, with over 21,000 users reporting problems at that time. Downdetector tracks platform service interruptions by aggregating user reports, website monitoring, and various other sources.
According to CNBC, the outage situation improved gradually in less than an hour, with only about 2,000 users still reporting abnormal platform behavior around 9:55 AM. This indicates a relatively rapid service restoration speed, although no official statement has been released regarding the interruption. X company also did not immediately respond to media inquiries.
Billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 and officially rebranded it as X in 2023. Musk positioned X as an “everything app,” aiming to integrate social media, payment systems, long-form content, and real-time information to create a central platform for modern digital life.
Musk has repeatedly expressed his desire for X to be a “truly free speech platform,” allowing users to express their opinions without censorship. He emphasized that open information and diverse functionality are the two key factors in the platform’s transformation.
During the rebranding process, X abandoned its original bluebird logo in favor of a geometric “X” symbol, along with a comprehensive update to color schemes and interface design. Musk stressed that this symbolizes X’s move towards a larger vision, no longer just being a social media platform but encompassing digital infrastructure across various aspects of life.
However, the platform’s transformation also comes with security challenges, as it has experienced multiple significant service interruptions. In March of this year, X suffered a large-scale outage, with Musk attributing the incident to a “massive network attack,” noting that the attackers utilized “a significant amount of resources” far beyond the usual level of online disruptions.