Extended Service Issues at X Linked to Data Center Outage and Staffing Cuts

For over 24 hours, X, formerly known as Twitter, has experienced widespread technical issues affecting user experience. Many users, including journalists, reported problems such as messages failing to load, timelines freezing, and posts disappearing unless refreshed multiple times. These issues began Thursday afternoon, with Downdetector receiving thousands of complaints starting at 2:12 p.m. Eastern. The platform’s engineering team attributed the disruption to a data center outage. Additionally, Wired reported a fire at a Portland-area data center leased by X, though it’s unclear whether this event is directly connected to the ongoing problems.

X’s recent history includes several major service disruptions, with notable outages in March 2025, December 2022, and July 2023. After Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company in 2022, the workforce was dramatically reduced from 7,500 to 1,300, leaving only 550 engineers by early 2023. Another round of layoffs, particularly targeting engineers, occurred in late 2024. These reductions have coincided with growing concerns about the platform’s resilience and security, especially in light of past misconfigurations that may have exposed it to cyber threats.

The persistent technical difficulties are raising questions about X’s infrastructure, staffing, and overall reliability under its current management.