• by Colin Kirkland , March 11, 2025

Following a period of major instability with regard to the proliferation of antisemitic and pro-Nazi content appearing alongside ad placements on X, more companies continue to reallocate ad dollars to the social-media platform. However, in addition to harmful content, brands now have to consider another threat to their X-related ad spend: cyberattacks. 

Over the past 24 hours, tens of thousands of people have reported issues with X, spurring company owner Elon Musk to publicly announce that the platform is experiencing “a massive cyberattack.” 

Over 41,000 people reported problems with accessing the platform Monday morning on DownDetector, a user report-tracking website. Throughout the following day, report rates continued to accumulate in the tens of thousands before the issue was resolved. 

By Tuesday, DownDetector showed over 1.6 million reports of problems with the social-media site from users on Monday.

Musk posted that the attack was “done with a lot of resources” by “a large, coordinated group and/or a country.” The billionaire entrepreneur then stated on Fox Business Network that X had traced the issue to “IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.”

Musk's mention of Ukraine, which is in the middle of a war with Russia, did not align with the public confession of a pro-Palestinian group with links to Russia called “Dark Storm” made on Telegram soon after the attack.

Dark Storm is known for primarily targeting countries and entities that support Israel's attack on Gaza following Hamas' attack in 2023.

Regardless of whom Musk blames for the attack, or who lays claim to it, brands advertising on X face concerns that their investment in the platform may come with unexpected outages, especially as Musk becomes further involved with the Trump administration and an ever-divisive moment in American politics.

“I can't think of a company of the size and standing internationally of X that's fallen over to a DDoS attack for a very long time,” Ciaran Martin -- former head of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre – told BBC.

Martin called the attack on X's servers “a very old technique” that is “not that sophisticated” -- a poor reflection on the company's cyber security status.

In addition to X, Musk’s position as the head of DOGE -- the Department of Government Efficiency -- has spurred global retaliation against Tesla as well, which experienced its worst daily loss since September on Monday, marking a 50% decline in shares in the past three months.

In general, X stands out in the social-media landscape due to its reputation as a real-time news source. Further cyberattacks could limit the platform's ability to sustain its real-time news coverage, driving users to copycat platforms like Threads, Bluesky or Mastodon.