X Goes Down: Musk's Social Network Down for Thousands of Users
X, formerly known as Twitter, encountered serious malfunctions for thousands of users Friday.
Users accessing X suddenly saw their entire feeds disappear, and the ability to post messages stopped working. On the home screen, this message appeared: 'Welcome to X! This is the best place to see what's happening in your world. Find some people and topics to follow now.'
More from Variety
Elon Musk Exits Trump Administration a Day After Criticizing 'Big Beautiful' Spending Bill
Neil Young Slams Elon Musk and 'Fascist' Tesla Drivers in New Single, Announces First Album With Chrome Hearts
'The Office' Star Rainn Wilson Says 'Left-Leaning News' Has a 'Passion' Against Trump That It Lacked During the Biden Administration: They Act Like 'Cleopatra, Queen of Denial'
As of 4:10 p.m. ET, more than 16,000 users had logged error complaints with Downdetector, an uptime-monitoring site.
More to come
Best of Variety
What's Coming to Netflix in June 2025
New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
35 minutes ago
- The Hill
Musk says he doesn't ‘wanna take responsibility' for all Trump actions
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, whose time as a special government employee came to an end on Friday, said in a Sunday interview that he doesn't want to 'take responsibility' for all actions of the Trump administration. In an interview on CBS News 'Sunday Morning,' Musk said he disagrees with some moves President Trump has made, though he hesitated to discuss them in more detail, saying that might create 'a bone of contention.' 'It's not like I agree with everything the administration does,' Musk said in the interview. 'I mean, I agree with much of what the administration does, but we have differences of opinion. You know, there are things that I don't entirely agree with.' 'But it's difficult for me to bring that up in an interview because then it creates a bone of contention,' Musk continued. 'So then, I'm a little stuck in a bind, where I'm like, 'Well, I don't wanna, you know, speak up against the administration, but I also don't wanna take responsibility for everything this administration's doing,'' he added. Musk made sweeping changes through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) over the last few months. He has said he will continue to advise the president when asked, even though his official role as senior adviser to the president has come to an end. In the interview, Musk stood by the work of DOGE and his efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce and cut what he deemed wasteful or unnecessary government spending. But he said DOGE 'became the whipping boy for everything,' which Musk described as 'a bit unfair.' 'So if there was some cut, real or imagined, everyone would blame DOGE,' Musk said. 'I've had people think that, like, somehow DOGE is gonna stop them from getting their Social Security check, which is completely untrue.'
The Hill
40 minutes ago
- The Hill
Main Street deserves access to private markets
On the campaign trail, President Trump promised to revive the American economy and deliver greater opportunity for working families: to create 'a middle class that is once again the envy of the entire world.' Making that pledge a reality starts with tax cuts and deregulation but doesn't end there. It will require policymakers to reconsider who has access to wealth-building opportunities. Unfortunately, far too many Americans lack the tools available to the wealthy. More Americans deserve the opportunity to invest in private markets, and that's something Trump's administration can provide. The Securities and Exchange Commission has a unique opportunity to help level the playing field. It has been more than 30 years since the agency reviewed the regulatory framework for retail funds created by the Investment Company Act of 1940. By modernizing these outdated rules and expanding access to private markets, the Securities and Exchange Commission can help put Main Street investors back on equal footing with Wall Street and big corporations. Over the last decade, private markets have exploded, growing to around $25 trillion since 2012. Big institutions like pension funds, endowments and hedge funds have long used these investments to earn higher returns than what's available in the stock market. But for everyday Americans? This opportunity to invest is largely off limits. Outdated regulations are primarily to blame. They assume retail investors can't handle the risks of private markets. In reality, institutional fund managers already invest responsibly in private markets on behalf of workers like teachers and police officers. Like any investment, private markets require proper safeguards. But with the right protections in place, there's no reason similar access couldn't be extended to individual investors. This is where the Securities and Exchange Commission can step in. Consider the current restriction that prevents closed-end funds from allocating more than 15 percent of their assets to private funds. This artificial cap locks Main Street investors out of opportunities their pension funds already enjoy. Removing or relaxing this limit — while maintaining proper oversight — would be a good first step toward giving Main Street access to wealth-building opportunities readily available to Wall Street. Closed-end funds are uniquely positioned for private investments, but because closed-end funds often trade a discount to their net asset value, short term arbitrageurs often seek to 'open' fund to capture the spread between traded value and asset value. Such activists seek to profit at the expense of long-term investors. It would help to design governance structures and legal frameworks that ensure the stability funds need to focus on long-term value. This is not to suggest we shouldn't have responsive governance and transparency for all investors, but we should encourage and enable long-term thinking and investing. These common-sense reforms are necessary to remove the barriers that have left the middle class locked out of a key financial tool. We should update old rules to reflect today's economy and empower more Americans to build wealth in the same way institutions and the wealthy already do. If the Trump administration wants not only to support but also to build up the middle class, the solution goes beyond creating good jobs and stimulating economic growth. It will also involve expanding access to the financial opportunities that create long-term wealth. It's time to finally level the playing field and make private markets available to everyone. Vikram Mansharamani, chairman and CEO of Goodwell Foods, is a former lecturer at Harvard and Yale and has served on the boards of closed-end funds, publicly-traded companies, and start-up technology firms.
Fox News
40 minutes ago
- Fox News
Variety report claims 'The Boys' and 'Handmaid's Tale' imaginary fascist worlds are becoming reality
Michael Schneider, executive editor for Variety's TV section, claimed in an article published Friday that the imaginary fascist worlds of Amazon Prime's "The Boys" and Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale" are becoming reality. Schneider argued the fictitious worlds created in the TV series "don't seem so far-fetched anymore" in President Donald Trump's America. "The Boys," a TV series based on a group of superheroes who cause more chaos than they do good, recently rolled out a marketing campaign jokingly referring to the show as a documentary. In a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone, showrunner Eric Kripke confirmed the series' "evil-Superman-style character," Homelander, was created as a "direct Trump analogue." The Variety editor wrote that the superhero series "feels a lot less fictional every season it's on the air." "That's why the cheeky 'The Boys' ads tout its campaign for 'Best Documentary Series.'" he wrote. "Sure, the 'documentary' is crossed out, and 'drama' is hastily written above it, like it was a last-minute mistake. But we've been making that joke for years." Schneider then shifted his focus to "The Handmaid's Tale," claiming the frightening events that take place in the series "don't seem so far-fetched anymore." He featured quotes from the show's creators to reinforce his point that the authoritarian dystopia featured in the series is now becoming reality. The show's executive producer, Eric Tuchman, recalled that some writers for the show were concerned about the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned when Trump won the presidency in 2016. He felt that it sounded "kind of alarmist and extremist … I could not have been more wrong, obviously." Tuchman claimed the show's creators weren't focused on calling attention to "the political situation in the country," but said "it was just uncanny how much it ended up being a mirror of what was happening in the real world." Another showrunner, Yahlin Chang, said before she joined the production, she "did all this research into what happens when parents and children are separated in conflict zones." She conducted this research in preparation for a scene in which one of the characters is allowed to visit her estranged daughter for only 10 minutes under government supervision. "My research focused on conflict zones like Liberia, Cambodia, Bosnia. I never imagined that that would happen in our own country. But by the time I wrote this scene in 2017, and by the time it aired in 2018, it aired the week that we were separating parents and children at the border," Chang said. She claimed "by doing research on what authoritarian regimes do," the show's creators "somehow predicted what would happen" in the real world. Schneider noted that, "Ironically, just as things get even worse here in the United States," the imaginary land of Gilead in the series is poised for a revolution. In closing, the Variety editor left readers with his hopes for the future. "A revolution and a happy ending for 'The Handmaid's Tale?' Here's hoping the real world can imitate art in this way, too," Schneider concluded.
