The social media platform X experienced significant outages on March 10, 2025, which owner Elon Musk attributed to a “massive cyberattack” connected to IP addresses from Ukraine, impacting users worldwide.
Details of the outage
Musk stated, “We’re not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the ecosystem with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area,” during an interview with Fox Business.
He claimed that the attack involved “a lot of resources” and suggested that “either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.” The outage left thousands of users unable to post or message on the platform.
According to Downdetector, the outage affected major cities including London, Birmingham, New York, and Los Angeles, logging over 10,883 reports of service failures by 9:25 AM on that day.
Users expressed their frustrations by turning to alternative platforms such as Facebook and Threads, posting messages like “Can’t access” and “So it begins.” Many already logged into the app encountered error messages stating, “Something went wrong, try reloading.”
Cybersecurity experts have questioned Musk’s claims. DDoS attacks, which were suggested as a likely cause, can often be executed by small groups or individuals, and experts noted that IP addresses can be masked or altered.
An industry source reported that much of the traffic targeting X could be traced to IP addresses in the U.S., Vietnam, Brazil, and other countries, stating that the amount of traffic coming from Ukraine was “insignificant.”
Complicating Musk’s claims, the hacker group known as ‘Dark Storm Team’ claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on Telegram. This group has previously targeted key sectors in Israel and NATO member states and has threatened further cyberattacks on the government websites of NATO nations, Israel, and their allies.
Musk’s statements and actions
On the same day as the alleged cyberattack, Musk criticized U.S. Senator Mark Kelly as a “traitor” for discussing his visit to wartime Ukraine. As head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk has been involved in cutting humanitarian aid to Kyiv and has called for the shutdown of U.S.-funded media outlets in Ukraine.
Musk has characterized these outlets as a waste of taxpayer money, asserting they are responsible for the misuse of up to a billion dollars in U.S. funds. Additionally, he has expressed strong opinions about Ukraine, previously supporting former President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw military aid and referring to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator,” challenging him to hold a presidential election to prove his popularity.
Musk purchased X, previously known as Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022 and has implemented significant changes since then. He merged Twitter Inc. into his own company, X Corp, and introduced a “premium” subscription model that enables features such as longer posts, tweet editing, and extended video uploads.
This incident is not X’s first significant outage, as Downdetector had previously reported problems for over 5,038 Barclays customers accessing their banking services, which Barclays attributed to an internal issue, in contrast to the claims surrounding the X outage.
Featured image credit: BoliviaInteligente/Unsplash
