X Platform Suffers Second Outage This Week

Elon Musk's X platform went down for the second time this week on Friday morning. The outage started around 10am ET, with close to 80,000 user reports pouring into DownDetector by midday. Users from New York to Los Angeles reported problems logging in, loading posts, and using the app on phones and computers. This follows a similar blackout earlier in the week that left millions unable to post or scroll.

Background

X has faced its share of troubles since Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it. The site changed a lot under his watch, with layoffs, new rules on speech, and pushes into video and payments. But keeping the servers running has been a challenge at times. Last year alone, there were several big outages that made headlines. One in March knocked out the site for hours, blaming a data center fire. Another in July tied to a hack on high-profile accounts. This week marks the second hit in just days. On Wednesday, a smaller outage slowed feeds for many. Now Friday's problem looks bigger. DownDetector charts show a sharp rise in complaints starting at 10am ET. That's about 7am on the West Coast and midday in parts of Europe. By 2pm ET, reports topped 79,000. Most gripes centered on the app not loading or login failures. Some said the website worked but the mobile version did not. X's engineering team stayed quiet at first. No official word came out until late afternoon when a post from the official account said they were looking into it. The platform has 500 million users worldwide. Even a short downtime hits hard for news, sports fans, and businesses that rely on it.

Key Details

Timeline of the Outage

The trouble began at 10am ET sharp. DownDetector, a site that tracks service problems, lit up with reports. By 10:30am, numbers climbed past 50,000. Peak hit around noon ET with almost 80,000 complaints. Things started easing by 3pm ET, but many still faced issues into the evening. West Coast users felt it from 7am PT. In London, it was 3pm local time. Reports came from big cities like Chicago, Dallas, and Seattle. Smaller spots in the Midwest also chimed in.

User Complaints

People took to other sites to vent. On Reddit, threads filled with screenshots of error messages. One user wrote about trying to refresh the feed 20 times with no luck. Apps on iPhone and Android both failed. Some said direct messages would not send. Others could not search for topics. A few reported payments through X's new system glitching. Businesses noted lost ad views and stalled promotions. One marketing firm said their live event coverage ground to a halt.

"Can't get into X at all. Been down since morning meeting. This is the second time this week." – Sarah Lopez, marketing manager in Atlanta

X support pages showed no updates until 4pm ET. Then a brief note said: "We are aware some users may be seeing errors and are working to fix it." No cause was named. Past outages often tied to server overloads or code changes. This one hit during peak US hours, right when traffic surges for lunch breaks and news cycles.

What This Means

Outages like this shake trust in X at a tough time. Users have options like Threads or Bluesky that are gaining ground. Big events, from sports games to stock market moves, often break first on X. When it fails, information slows. Companies lose money on ads and sales tied to the platform. For Musk, who runs Tesla and SpaceX too, these blackouts draw extra eyes. His recent moves, like tying X to Grok AI, add pressure to keep it stable. Regulators watch closely after past data issues. Repeated problems could push more users away. Smaller sites report jumps in sign-ups during X downtimes. Ad dollars might shift if blackouts keep happening. For everyday people, it means finding news elsewhere. Podcasters and YouTubers pick up the slack. But X remains key for real-time talk. If fixes take longer, weekend plans like following NFL games could suffer. Teams at X likely pull all-nighters to patch it. Past patterns show most outages resolve in hours, not days. Still, two in one week raises questions about the tech backbone. More eyes will track the next few days for patterns or fixes.