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Elon Musk's social media platform X experienced widespread outages on Monday following what the billionaire entrepreneur described as a "massive cyberattack." The disruption affected tens of thousands of users, with reports of service issues beginning around 6 a.m. Eastern Time and spiking again at 10 a.m., according to tracking website Downdetector.com.
"We're not sure exactly what happened," Musk told Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow. "But there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." This claim has sparked debate among cybersecurity experts who note that IP addresses can be easily spoofed.
Security researcher Kevin Beaumont contested Musk's assertion, stating on Bluesky that the claim was "missing a key fact — it was actually IPs from worldwide, not just Ukraine." Beaumont suggested it appeared to be a Mirai variant botnet composed of compromised cameras, describing it as the work of "advanced persistent teenagers" rather than state actors.
Allan Liska of cybersecurity firm Recorded Future echoed this skepticism. He explained that even if Ukrainian IP addresses were involved, they were "most likely compromised machines controlled by a botnet run by a third party that could be located anywhere in the world."
The timing of the attack has raised questions about potential motives. It occurred just one day before scheduled diplomatic talks between Washington and Kyiv in Saudi Arabia. Alex Plitsas from the Atlantic Council told The Post, "It makes absolutely no sense for Ukrainian hackers to attack Elon Musk the day before a meeting between the United States and Ukraine."
Plitsas suggested examining who might benefit from such an attack: "The only one is really the Russians, because doing it today would disrupt the talks that are scheduled for tomorrow." Russian actors might have targeted X to frame Ukraine and "disrupt the talks," he theorized.
Interestingly, just one day before the attack, Musk had highlighted his support for Ukraine's military operations. "My Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army," he wrote on X. "Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off." The Starlink terminals provided by Musk have been critical for Ukrainian military communications since Russia's 2022 invasion.
By Monday afternoon, reported outages had decreased to the low thousands, with Musk confirming to Kudlow that the platform was back up shortly before 5 p.m. ET. Earlier, he had acknowledged the severity of the attack, writing, "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."
Nicholas Reese, a cyber operations expert at NYU's Center for Global Affairs, questioned the likelihood of state involvement. He noted that the attack's short duration and high visibility didn't align with typical state-sponsored operations, which tend to be "quiet" and more strategic. "Something like this was designed to be discovered," he observed.
