Elon Musk has alleged that a “massive cyberattack” originating from the “Ukraine area” was behind the repeated outages faced by his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.
However, a pro-Palestinian hacker group has claimed responsibility, casting doubt over Musk’s assertions.
The billionaire and chief of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said during a conversation on Fox News that the attack involved “a lot of resources” and may have been carried out by “either a large, coordinated group and/or a country.”
“We’re not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyberattack to bring down the X system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area,” Musk stated.
His remarks come amid ongoing criticism of his stance on Ukraine, where he has claimed that the country’s frontline “would collapse” without his Starlink satellite service. Musk has also faced scrutiny for his recent comments suggesting that Ukraine’s war efforts against Russia are unsustainable.
Pro-Palestinian group claims attack
Despite Musk’s claims, a pro-Palestinian hacker group called Dark Storm Team took responsibility for the disruption. The group, which has previously targeted countries and organisations supporting Israel’s military actions in Gaza, said it had launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on X.
Cybersecurity experts remain sceptical of Musk’s assertion that the attack was linked to Ukraine, noting that DDoS attacks—where websites are flooded with rogue traffic—do not necessarily require state-level resources.
A source within the internet infrastructure industry told Reuters that X had been targeted by multiple waves of DDoS attacks starting at 9:45 UTC, resulting in widespread service disruptions.
Downdetector, a website tracking online outages, reported a peak of 39,021 affected users in the United States by 10 am ET. The number of disruptions had decreased to around 1,500 by the evening.
Political undertones
The attack comes at a time when Musk continues to be vocal about the war in Ukraine. He has previously stated that he would not revoke Starlink access for Ukrainian forces but has questioned the long-term viability of Kyiv’s military efforts.
Defending his stance, Musk responded to criticism on X, saying, “I literally challenged Putin to one-on-one combat over Ukraine, and my Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army.”
“What I am sickened by is years of slaughter in a stalemate that Ukraine will inevitably lose,” he added.
While X has frequently faced cyberattacks, the latest disruption and Musk’s attribution to Ukraine have added to the controversy surrounding his political positions. The exact source of the attack remains unclear.
