X Goes Down for Thousands of Users
In what appears to be a widespread outage for many X users, the social networking site owned by Elon Musk was experiencing technical problems and displaying errors Friday.
According to outage tracking website Downdetector.com, as of 2:46 p.m. ET Thursday, more than 53,000 complaints had been filed about X. About half (54%) of user error reports said they had issues accessing the X app, with others complaining about the ability to access the site.
More from Variety
Elon Musk Says X Outage Caused by 'Massive Cyberattack'
X Briefly Down Multiple Times as Thousands of Users Report Outage on Elon Musk's Social Media Platform
Kanye West's X Account Deactivated After Days of Antisemitic Posts; Rapper Wrote 'I'm a Nazi' and More
On the web, users saw the error message, 'Something went wrong. Try reloading' when they tried to access posts.
The problems appeared to have been resolved less than half an hour later.
X, formerly known as Twitter, most recently suffered rolling outages on March 10, which Musk blamed on 'a massive cyberattack' against the platform.
Before that, the last major X outage happened in August 2024, when 66% of users reported experiencing problems with the app, website and server connection. Other past issues have included the impairment of key features in July 2023, and the March 2024 crashing of Ron DeSantis' Twitter Spaces live audio event during his official announcement that he would be running for U.S. president.
Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion and laid off about 80% of its employees. In May 2024, the website officially became X.com and the twitter.com domain was retired. Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and Space X, rebranded Twitter as X in July 2023.
Best of Variety
What's Coming to Disney+ in April 2025
New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
The Best Celebrity Memoirs to Read This Year: From Chelsea Handler to Anthony Hopkins
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
'Data can be weaponized': Ronan Farrow sounds alarm on DOGE access to private Social Security data
Ronan Farrow, contributing writer to the New Yorker, talks with Jen Psaki about the Supreme Court granting DOGE access to private, personal social security data, and how Elon Musk's agitated behavior, combined with the sensitivity of personal data, makes our new reality particularly perilous. "There is an erratic person who has his own complicated international alliances and business interests who is controlling key functionality that the American people depend on."
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's feud with Donald Trump is hugely damaging to Tesla but don't expect any action from the board
How should a corporate board respond to a CEO publicly insulting and shaming a sitting president? It's not a question that most need to consider, since few chief executives dare to directly criticize the White House. When CEOs do speak out against a federal directive, their messages are usually delivered behind closed doors, or in a collective open letter. But this week, Elon Musk changed all that and forced the issue in a prolonged public spat with Donald Trump. The pair had a much-anticipated falling out over Trump's budget, also referred to as the 'big beautiful bill,' on Thursday, which quickly got personal. Musk asked his social media followers if it was time to create a new political party, said that Trump's tariffs would cause a recession, and even claimed that Trump's name was in government documents about Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sexual offender. 'That is the real reason they have not been made public,' Musk wrote. The feud has already been costly for Musk and his many businesses, including Tesla. The automaker's shares took a tumble as the back-and-forth took over the news cycle, dropping 14% in on Thursday, and costing shareholders $150 billion. Now analysts warn that feuding with Trump could cost Tesla billions, considering that Trump could repeal electric vehicle tax credits and other measures that have boosted Tesla's earnings. The company could also face increasing regulatory obstacles around its autonomous driving vehicles, the technology that is meant to drive Tesla's future and has been cited by stock watchers as a reason for the stock's sustained eye-popping performance. Tesla bull and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives seemed to speak for investors early on Friday when he wrote in a research note: 'This needs to calm down.' At a regular company, there's a solid chance that the events of the last few days would spur a board to dismiss a CEO. But will the Tesla board fire Musk to protect public shareholders from potential damages? 'They should,' Charles Elson, founding director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, told Fortune. 'But they won't.' The Trump-Musk spat is just the latest in a series of events that have forced the question of what role Tesla's board actually plays in the company. 'Over the years, Musk's behavior has become more outrageous,' says Elson. 'The board's lack of response makes you wonder, 'Who are these people? Why are they there?'' It has long faced criticisms for being too close to Musk, and therefore willing to overlook numerous management issues. For instance, it famously approved Musk's much-disputed 2018 pay package for $56 billion, and has silently witnessed a year of high-profile divisive behavior from the chief executive that has led to public protests and customers distancing themselves from the company. And recent allegations about Musk's drug use echo reports that have surfaced in the past without putting Musk's role at risk. There are a few contributing factors as to why that is. Musk is a controlling shareholder in Tesla, where he holds 22% of the voting power, making it extra challenging for board members to have the votes needed to force him out. The board is also in a tough position in that firing Musk could tank the stock, considering that his name is so closely associated with the company. Many directors also have particularly close ties to Musk. That includes his brother Kimbal Musk, an entrepreneur and restaurant owner, and Joe Gebbia, a cofounder of Airbnb and a friend of Musk's. There are no car industry or green energy CEOs in the group, as one might expect at a typical EV company. The directors are also paid very well. This year, a Delaware court ordered the board to give back more than $900 billion in pay after finding it had paid itself too handsomely. Robyn Denholm, Tesla board chair since 2018, earned $600 million, far more than people with the same position at other companies. The court found 'the compensation was so significant, it made it really almost impossible for them to be independent directors,' says Elson. 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it,' says Nell Minow, a corporate governance expert, quoting Upton Sinclair. 'That's this board.' To be sure, this year, there were signs earlier this year that Tesla's directors were taking more control over the company's governance. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported last month that the board had begun looking for a successor and selected a search firm to assist them. It also reported that the board had met with Trump weeks before he announced he would be spending less time at the White House. It seemed that between the backlash against Tesla provoked by Musk's focus on Washington, and Tesla's shrinking share price, finally pushed the board to act. But the board denied the report outright, with Denholm calling it 'absolutely false.' Even considering his own predilection for conflict, Elon Musk's latest squabble is in a category of its own. But board experts agree that to expect action from the Tesla board is misguided. 'There have been so many 'Now the board has to do something moments,' and they have failed every time,' says Minow. 'I no longer feel that there is such a thing as 'Now they have to do something.'' There are technically ways that shareholders could move the needle if they wanted Musk out. They could vote directors off the board via shareholder proxy votes, and hope that new directors would fire Musk. Or they could try to sue the board for not kicking Musk to the curb when he put the brand at risk and split his focus between Washington and Tesla. But a shareholder who wanted to do that would need to own up to a 3% stake in the company, points out Ann Lipton, associate dean for faculty research at Tulane University's Law School, and governance laws make it all but impossible to do. 'No shareholder is going to be able to show that this board is acting in bad faith by failing to replace Musk as CEO, which is really the level that they'd have to show,' she said. It's still theoretically possible that a Tesla board director could try to bring about change by suggesting Musk go. But they would have to make peace with potentially losing their roles, says Elson. 'They would say, 'Look, I will vote to move him along. And if I lose, I leave. I can't do this anymore,'' says Elson. Whether they'll do that depends on whether they're people of principle, he added, or 'people of convenience.''We'll have to see,' he said. This story was originally featured on Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
Trump Canceling Musk's SpaceX Contracts Could Force US Closer to Russia
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. As President Donald Trump threatens to cancel SpaceX's government contracts amid a feud with Elon Musk, experts told Newsweek that the move could leave the U.S. reliant on Russia for space launches and access. "SpaceX is immensely important to U.S. national security and NASA," Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Aerospace Security Project, told Newsweek on Friday, adding that if the contracts are terminated, "NASA would again have to turn to Russia to get to and from the [International] Space Station [ISS]." Why It Matters NASA and SpaceX have built one of the most significant public-private partnerships in modern space exploration. Since 2015, SpaceX has received more than $13 billion in NASA contracts, making it one of the agency's largest private partners. SpaceX is deeply integrated into U.S. national security and the space program, with Swope telling Newsweek: "SpaceX is not like the appendix but a vital organ in everything the United States is doing in space." Musk, the SpaceX CEO and former Trump ally heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), clashed publicly with the president on Thursday in a heated exchange on social media. The dispute began over Musk's criticism of a Trump-backed spending bill and escalated into threats over federal contracts and allegations involving Trump's ties to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva What To Know On Thursday, the president threatened termination of Musk's various contracts, writing in a Truth Social post: "The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts." SpaceX holds billions of dollars in NASA contracts and plays a key role in the U.S. space program. While several experts told Newsweek they don't believe the contracts will be canceled, they raised concerns about the company's outsized influence on the industry and the critical gaps it could leave. Access To The ISS "SpaceX is immensely important to U.S. national security and NASA. SpaceX is not like the appendix, but a vital organ in everything the United States is doing in space," Swope said Friday in an emailed statement. "Ending work with SpaceX would leave a huge gap that cannot be filled with the other options available today. The biggest impacts would be to space launch and maintaining the International Space Stations. NASA would again have to turn to Russia to get to and from the space station." In 2014, SpaceX was selected to provide crew launch services to the ISS through the development of Crew Dragon, a capsule that transports astronauts to and from the ISS, and its operational missions. NASA has no other way to independently get to and from the ISS without SpaceX. As a result of this and other measures, Scott Hubbard, former director of NASA's Ames Research Center, the first Mars program director and the founder of NASA's Astrobiology Institute, told Newsweek that he doesn't believe Trump's threats will be realized, saying: "There is no alternative to the F9-Dragon combination at present. "He would be stranding astronauts on the ISS unless he wants to go hat in hand to the Russians and try to get more Soyuz flight," in reference to the spacecraft that provides crewed transport to the ISS. Russia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, and the U.S. have long been in a space race. Russia is actively developing its own space station, known as the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS), to succeed the ISS, which is set to retire in 2030. Construction on the proposed project is set to begin in 2027. Laura Forczyk, founder of space consulting firm Astralytical, told Newsweek that while it's possible the U.S. may negotiate a contract with Russia to launch astronauts to the ISS, "the current geopolitical climate would make that difficult." Tensions between Washington and Moscow remain high as ceasefire talks for the Russia-Ukraine war have stalled, with the last round of negotiations lasting just 90 minutes with little progress. Adding to the tension, Dmitry Novikov, first deputy chairman of Russia's State Duma Committee on International Affairs, told the state-run outlet TASS on Friday that while he doesn't believe Musk will need political asylum, "if he did, Russia, of course, could provide it." Stateside, space experts largely agree that Musk essentially has a "monopoly" on the industry, responsible for key people movement and launching "more than 90 percent of the U.S. satellites into space," Darrell West, a senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation in the governance studies program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told Newsweek. While companies like Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Boeing are also involved in spaceflight, they don't operate at the same capacity as SpaceX or hold the same number and type of government contracts. Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the University of Mississippi's Center for Air and Space Law, told Newsweek in an email: "Certainly, there are other launch service providers but SpaceX remains dominant and the time it would take to replace all services would delay many important missions and strategic plans, including the proposed Golden Dome." She added that "U.S. reliance on SpaceX is not borne of favoritism but of necessity and efficiency." Aspects Of The Space Program Space research and exploration go beyond science. They are central to U.S. national security. The Department of Defense holds multiple contracts to launch satellites used for GPS, intelligence gathering and military coordination. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union fiercely competed for dominance in space, viewing it as a critical domain of defense. "Space is important as an end in itself in terms of exploring and gaining new knowledge. But it also is taking on a defense role, because space is getting militarized. There are both offensive and defensive weapons that could be put into space," West said. "There's a lot riding on this relationship. People are worried if there is a major war, adversaries could shoot down our satellites and destroy our GPS systems and mobile communications." Beyond high-profile rocket launches and missions to the ISS, the U.S. space program encompasses a wide range of activities, including deploying space-based science observatories, launching lunar landers and preparing crewed and uncrewed missions to the moon and other planets, among other initiatives. What Happens Next When Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment on Friday, it was referred to NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens' statement, which was emailed to Newsweek. "NASA will continue to execute upon the President's vision for the future of space," Stevens said. "We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President's objectives in space are met." Given the volatile nature of their feud, it remains unclear whether Trump will attempt to cancel existing contracts or limit future deals, or whether Musk could pull SpaceX out of its government commitments altogether.
