X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has been suffering from outages all day Monday. And owner Elon Musk has finally said what’s behind it. Well, what he thinks is behind it. The billionaire oligarch says X is being hit with a “major cyberattack,” though he didn’t present any evidence to back up his claim.
“There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X,” Musk tweeted Monday afternoon. “We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources. Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved. Tracing …”
Musk appears to just be speculating about the cause of the outages, given how he leaves everything so open-ended. And it’s important to remember that Musk has a long history of just lying about various topics. One recent example was on Joe Rogan, when Musk lied about several things, including the idea that Tesla didn’t have any employees when he joined the company. Musk has long tried to take credit for founding the company, something that isn’t true. And Musk was asked about that by Rogan, prompting the billionaire to double down on his lies.
Later in the day, Musk tried to suggest on Fox Business while talking to Larry Kudlow that Ukraine may have been behind the outage, though he again didn’t provide any evidence for his assertion.
X has experienced several relatively small outages since Musk bought the website in October 2022, but Monday’s ongoing outage is a bad one. Strangely, there does appear to be significant regional differences in who can get on X. One Gizmodo writer working in Southern California was having intermittent outages Monday but was able to access the site as of this writing. Other Gizmodo employees in New York and South Carolina, however, were not able to access the platform.
If X is under a DDoS attack, who might really be behind it? There are frankly too many potential suspects to count. Musk has pissed off a lot of people in recent months, first by helping get President Donald Trump elected with at least $277 million in campaign donations. Musk then made two Nazi-style salutes the day Trump was inaugurated, something he later denied was meant to invoke Nazi Germany. The oligarch then went to work illegally dismantling federal agencies like USAID and sending his team of DOGE dipshits to penetrate sensitive government data, including everything from tax return information at the U.S. Treasury Department to Social Security databases.
We may never get a real answer for why X is struggling today, but you can rest assured that whatever’s actually happening, Musk will capitalize on it to claim he’s a victim. That’s the MAGA mindset, and it doesn’t matter that Musk is the wealthiest man in the world. These guys always find a way to sound like they’re an oppressed minority.
Musk and his company, Tesla, have been the target of sustained protests in recent weeks at dealerships across the country. And rather than admitting people might earnestly dislike the fascist takeover he’s orchestrating, the billionaire is trying to insist it’s the result of wealthy liberals like George Soros who are out to hurt him.
“An investigation has found 5 ActBlue-funded groups responsible for Tesla ‘protests’: Troublemakers, Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project and Democratic Socialists of America,” Musk wrote on Saturday.
ActBlue is essentially just a payments processor, but Musk tries to make it sound like a shadowy group out to get him. If you made a donation to any Democratic-aligned group or candidate during the 2024 presidential campaign, there’s a good chance ActBlue showed up on your billing statement.
“ActBlue funders include George Soros, Reid Hoffman, Herbert Sandler, Patricia Bauman, and Leah Hunt-Hendrix,” Musk continued. “ActBlue is currently under investigation for allowing foreign and illegal donations in criminal violation of campaign finance regulations. This week, 7 ActBlue senior officials resigned, including the associate general counsel.”
It should be noted that Herbert Sandler died in 2019, Patricia Bauman died in 2024, and George Soros no longer makes public appearances because of his age. Musk doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. But he’s going to keep blaming dead people for the righteous anger that’s bubbled up.
X didn’t immediately respond to questions emailed on Monday. Gizmodo will update this post if we hear back.
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