A significant service disruption hit Elon Musk’s social media platform X on Friday, January 16, 2026, affecting tens of thousands of users across multiple continents. According to real-time outage monitoring service Downdetector, the technical failure generated over 62,000 user-reported incidents in the United States alone by 10:22 AM Eastern Time.
The widespread connectivity issues manifested differently across global regions. United Kingdom users reported approximately 11,000 incidents, while Indian users documented over 3,000 separate service interruptions. The outage tracking platform aggregates its data from multiple sources, compiling status reports from users experiencing accessibility problems.
Downdetector’s methodology relies on user-submitted reports rather than internal platform metrics, meaning the actual number of affected users could potentially exceed the documented figures. The disruption represents one of the most substantial technical incidents for the platform since its rebranding from Twitter under Musk’s leadership.
The timing of the outage during peak usage hours in multiple time zones amplified its impact, preventing users from accessing core platform features. Service reliability has become increasingly critical for X as the platform expands its functionality into financial services and content monetization.
Technical teams at X Corporation have not yet released an official statement regarding the root cause of the service interruption or projected restoration timeline. The incident highlights the ongoing challenges facing large-scale social media infrastructures in maintaining consistent global service availability.