Elon Musk’s X AI platform has been hit by a massive cyber-attack, leaving users in the U.S. and UK unable to refresh feeds or access accounts. Musk confirmed the attack’s severity, pointing to IP traces from “the Ukraine area,” though experts caution that origin masking is possible.
Elon Musk’s X, the social media platform powered by xAI, has been struck by a massive cyberattack, plunging it into chaos and raising fears of broader repercussions across the digital landscape. The assault, claimed by the shadowy hacking collective Dark Storm Team, began on March 10, 2025, and may still be underway as of March 11, with outages crippling access for users in the United States and the United Kingdom. This audacious strike, unfolding against a backdrop of escalating tensions between technology and geopolitics, follows a turbulent week of public clashes between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, amplifying concerns about its potential as a retaliatory act with global implications.
Musk, who took ownership of X in late 2022, addressed the crisis on Fox News on Monday, admitting the severity of the incident.
“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” he told the network, speculating that the operation could involve “either a large, coordinated group and/or a country.”
His candid remarks, paired with a post on X echoing the same sentiment, have ignited a firestorm of speculation, with analysts and media outlets racing to uncover whether this attack ties into Musk’s growing political clout—a force that’s increasingly impossible to ignore on the world stage.
The attack’s toll was immediate and severe. Downdetector logged tens of thousands of outage reports from U.S. users on Monday, with over 8,000 UK users reporting similar issues by early afternoon GMT. For hours, X users faced spinning loading icons, unable to refresh feeds or access accounts—a disruption confirmed by Netblocks director Alp Toker as consistent with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
“This is amongst the longest X outages we’ve tracked,”
Toker told BBC News, noting its global scope and duration. Such attacks, designed to flood a site’s infrastructure with traffic, signal a calculated effort to bring X to its knees.
The source of the attack remains a puzzle wrapped in intrigue. Musk, during his Fox News appearance, pointed to IP addresses originating from “the Ukraine area,” though he stopped short of providing hard evidence. Experts warn that IP spoofing could mask the true culprits, muddying attribution. Meanwhile, the Dark Storm Team, a pro-Palestinian group with a history of targeting pro-Israel and NATO-aligned entities, claimed responsibility via Telegram—a claim yet to be verified. Known for blending ideological fervor with geopolitical agendas, their involvement could suggest a strike aimed at Musk’s perceived alliances or his platform’s role in shaping contentious narratives.
This cyber offensive arrives at a fraught moment. Just days ago, Trump and Zelensky traded barbs over U.S. policy, thrusting Musk—whose X amplifies such debates—into the spotlight. His recent advocacy for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and his sway over political discourse may have painted a target on X, especially if Dark Storm sees it as a tool of Western influence. The global media is abuzz, questioning whether this is a direct response to Musk’s outsized role or part of a larger campaign against tech giants—a scenario with the potential to destabilize platforms beyond X.
The broader stakes are chilling. A DDoS attack of this scale exposes cracks in digital defenses, inviting copycat strikes on networks like Facebook or TikTok. For Musk, whose empire spans Tesla and SpaceX, the incident—laid bare in his Fox News admission—underscores the risks of intertwining business with politics—a tightrope he’s walked with increasing boldness.
The Dark Storm Team’s past hits on U.S. airports and NATO targets reveal a pattern of anti-Western sentiment and solidarity with Palestine, hinting at motives that could cast X as a symbolic foe. Yet, without definitive proof, the attack’s full story remains shrouded—leaving the tech world braced for what comes next in this volatile clash of innovation and ideology.
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