Elon Musk claims that a "massive cyberattack" caused waves of outages on his X

Elon Musk believes that a cyberattack using IP addresses from Ukraine is to blame for the waves of disruptions that affected his company's X earlier Monday.

In an interview with Fox Business on Monday afternoon, Musk stated, “We're not sure exactly what happened.” “But there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.”

Musk's Perspective on the Attack

Musk did not elaborate on where the attack came from or if he thought it had anything to do with the Ukrainian government. IP addresses can be hidden to make it appear as though the traffic is coming from a different location and hackers-for-hire frequently provide location spoofing services.

Around 6 a.m. ET, up to 20,538 customers reported issues, according to the outage tracking website DownDetector. After a little respite, about 40,000 customers reported disruptions at 10 am. Around 2:00 PM ET, outages that were recorded on DownDetector started to decline and gradually decreased during the afternoon.

DownDetector's international sites indicate that the outage seemed to be worldwide, and many users reported that the platform wouldn't load. In the Fox Business interview, which aired at 4 p.m. ET, Musk claimed that the platform was operational once more.

The Outage's Uncertainties

DownDetector data does not fully represent the scale of an outage, and CNN has reached out to X, but the company doesn't usually respond to press inquiries.

Elon Musk posted on X that he believes a large, coordinated group or country is involved, but the source of motivation isn't confirmed. No further details about the service disruption, including whether it was caused by a targeted attack, have been revealed.

In addition, CyberSheath CEO Eric Noonan stated that it is too early to determine if an attack caused the issues. Statements made in the short period, immediately after, or during an attack should be taken with a grain of salt.

Elon Musk has a history of attributing technical snafus to cyberattacks, as evidenced by his conversation with Donald Trump on X in August 2024, where he claimed a

100% probability of DDOS attacks. In 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign announcement on X was also marred by technical difficulties.

Ultimately, Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, has faced numerous glitches and disruptions since the acquisition. The company's shares fell 15% on Monday, marking a significant drop since Trump's November 2024 election, highlighting the challenges faced by Musk's businesses.

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