Elon Musk has claimed that his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) came under a “massive cyberattack” on Monday, leaving it inaccessible for several hours.
Speaking on the site once it was back online, the billionaire suggested the assault may have been orchestrated by a “large, coordinated group and/or a country,” and later indicated it might have originated from Ukraine.
Thousands of X users reported problems accessing the platform for much of Monday, with the outage appearing most pronounced between 9.30am and 6pm, as tracked by monitoring site Downdetector. Musk told Fox Business that “we’re not sure exactly what happened,” but said the scale of the attack implied a significant expenditure of resources.
A hacking group known as Dark Storm claimed responsibility on the Telegram messaging app, though their statement is as yet unverified. The group typically targets Israeli sites and promotes cryptocurrency and hacking tools.
X underwent similar outages shortly after Mr Musk completed his takeover in 2022, when the entrepreneur cut much of the workforce and made broad changes to its IT systems. Since buying Twitter for $44 billion (£34 billion), Musk has laid off around 80 per cent of the company’s staff.
The alleged attack comes amid growing protests against Mr Musk’s involvement in Donald Trump’s administration, where he leads the new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). Tesla premises have suffered vandalism, with demonstrations taking place at dealerships. Musk has previously suggested he may face assassination attempts because of his government role. When an X user posited that hackers wanted to “silence” Musk and the platform, the billionaire tersely responded: “Yes.”
Separately, shares in Tesla, Musk’s electric car company, fell on Monday in response to wider market sell-off, sparked by fears of a US economic downturn.