Elon Musk claims X hit by 'massive cyberattack'

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, claimed Monday that the social media platform had been the target of a "massive cyberattack" after outages left it unavailable for thousands of users.

"There was [still is] a massive cyberattack against X," Musk said in a post.

"We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources," he claimed, adding that "either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved."

Musk blames 'IP addresses in Ukraine'

Later, in an interview with Fox Business, Musk said the computer systems used in the alleged attack appeared to have IP addresses in Ukraine but did not immediately provide any evidence for his claim.

However, some cybersecurity experts stressed this does not necessarily mean the attack originated in Ukraine.

Nearly 40,000 users initially reported problems with X at the peak of the outage at around 10 a.m. US East Coast time (2 p.m. UTC) on Monday, according to tracking site Downdetector.com.

The number then fluctuated, dropping significantly before rising around noon to almost 35,000 and then falling again.

X, formerly Twitter, has experienced several glitches since tech mogul Musk acquired the platform in 2022.

Edited by: Louis Oelofse