On the evening of May 8, 2025, a significant number of X (formerly Twitter) users started noticing that their timelines were not refreshing. The problem impacted both the mobile app and web versions, with users stating that posts were not appearing and notifications had stopped. The social platform, controlled by Elon Musk since 2022, continues to face technical setbacks and user frustration as the company delivers no immediate explanation.
Waves of user reports, especially in North America and Europe, mark this as one of the most widespread outages for X this year. This setback comes as X is already under scrutiny due to recurring technical difficulties and the effects of mass layoffs. Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening and how users and the company are responding.
X Timelines Not Updating for Many
Many X users experienced timelines freezing on the evening of May 8, with no new posts since around 6 p.m. Eastern. This “timeline freeze” led to immediate confusion, especially for those reliant on X for real-time updates on news, trends, and conversations.
The issue appeared to have a global dimension, with people in various regions reporting similar experiences. No new posts were visible; only older tweets remained on feeds, even after restarting the app or refreshing the web page. Users quickly took to other social platforms and forums to confirm they weren’t alone.
For many, this wasn’t a subtle hiccup. Entire timelines were left stuck for up to 15 hours or more. The disruption directly impacted not just casual users but also businesses, reporters, and content creators who rely on the platform’s immediacy.
X had not released any statement or update as this issue persisted for much of the night and following morning. As a result, frustration grew more visible by the hour, with “X down” trending on alternative forums and news trackers.
Notifications Stopped Working
The timeline updates weren’t the only thing broken. Alongside the posting freeze, notifications stopped working for a large number of users. Important alerts – likes, replies, DMs, and new follows – simply ceased to appear on both mobile and web platforms.
Many people first realized there was a problem not by looking at the timeline but when they noticed their notifications had stopped altogether. “No notifications since about 10 p.m. last night here in Germany!” posted one user in X’s unofficial subreddit, reflecting the frustration felt on both sides of the Atlantic.
Users reporting this found no fix, commenting on forums that uninstalling and reinstalling the app made no difference. Others tried logging out and back in, resetting devices, and even subscribing to X Premium, but to no avail. The problem appears to be rooted in server-side issues, not client settings.
Without notifications, users lost touch with routine interactions and conversations. This break in engagement especially hurt creators and brands who use X for business and outreach.
Problems Affect Both App and Web
Unlike some past outages that were isolated to mobile or one type of device, this timeline outage affected both the X mobile app and its web version at the same time. Users switching between their phones, tablets, and computers did not find any improvement – even across browsers.
Attempts to clear browser caches, restart devices, or even change networks (from Wi-Fi to data) proved ineffective. Subscribers to X Premium, hoping for priority support or better uptime, were also impacted. The paid tier did not shield anyone from the outage.
The universality of this problem points to a fundamental server or backend failure, rather than a bug in a specific app version or OS. With all mainstream platforms impacted, the scope of technical breakdown at X is especially significant here.
For many, the situation raised new questions about the resilience of X’s infrastructure, which has been in focus since Musk’s cost-cutting and engineering layoffs after his 2022 acquisition.
Service interruptions like this highlight just how central X remains for public conversation – and how vulnerable its systems are post-layoffs.
Downdetector Shows Outage Spike
Downdetector, a well-known real-time monitoring site for digital services, showed a sharp increase in outage reports for X beginning late May 8 and continuing into May 9. Its dashboard lets the public see how many people are reporting issues and visualize spikes that track major service interruptions.
This marked spike in reports pointed to an issue on X’s side rather than individual Wi-Fi or mobile network problems. Downdetector’s data helps confirm the outage’s reach and timing, making it clear this was not a limited or geographically isolated problem.
Outage graphs provided by Downdetector are often cited by journalists and users alike during major incidents, as they help validate user experiences. In the case of X, the flood of reports trailed off only as the platform slowly came back for some users, but new complaints continued for many.
References to Downdetector are now standard whenever tech giants suffer service breakdowns, and this event proved no exception. For frustrated users, seeing those live reports provided some relief – it wasn’t just their devices being problematic.
User Complaints Flood Reddit
As X’s own platform lost functionality, users turned to Reddit and other social forums to vent and investigate. Several threads popped up across Reddit’s unofficial X community as impacted users tried to compare notes, troubleshoot, and confirm what was going wrong.
Direct quotes from users show the international scope and shared frustration. One post read,
“I thought that uninstalling and reinstalling the app would work (it didn’t).”Others mentioned missed notifications and total loss of activity since specific times late Thursday night.
Reddit became a hub for troubleshooting advice, such as device switching, app reinstallations, and even speculation about hidden server issues at X. But all attempts seemed ineffective, reinforcing that the outage was not user-side.
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Some users speculated about backend changes, bugs introduced by updates, or even possible attacks, though no authoritative answer was available in the threads. This lack of credible explanation only made rumors spread more widely across Reddit and other discussion sites.
Attempts to Fix the Issue Failing
As the timeline and notification outages stretched on, users tried a wide array of solutions based on previous experience with social media bugs. The most common fixes – restarting the app, signing out, deleting and reinstalling, and switching devices – were repeatedly reported as ineffective.
Even advanced troubleshooting, like clearing cache and data on Android or iOS, toggling network connections, or trying alternate versions of the app, failed to restore X’s normal functionality. Premium subscribers similarly ran into a wall, with the paid tier offering no special status or workaround.
Posts on Reddit and other forums clearly documented all failed attempts, with users confirming to one another that this was not a unique or device-specific fault. These crowd-sourced experiments helped rule out user error or random glitches.
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The growing consensus was that the cause lay entirely on X’s server side. The episode emphasized how little recourse end users actually have during a true backend breakdown. The sense of helplessness only increased tensions online.
X Remains Silent Amid Outage
Despite the range and intensity of problems, X’s official channels were quiet. No response appeared on the company’s support feeds, newsroom, or help desk portals. This silence sparked more complaints, especially as companies are often quick to acknowledge and address mass outages in real time.
Users and journalists noted that during previous incidents, X had also lagged in issuing official statements. This lack of transparency can frustrate power users and businesses who depend on real-time updates during network failures.
The press tried to get comments but got no answer for several hours after the initial reports. Lack of public incident reports or even a generic acknowledgment left many to speculate about the root cause, with no concrete information provided by the company.
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For X, repeated late or absent communication about disruptions risks eroding trust among core user communities, especially as reliability and service quality concerns continue to rise post-Musk acquisition.
Major X Outages in Recent Years
This incident is the latest in a string of outages to hit X since its transition from Twitter and Elon Musk’s acquisition. The most notable recent outage occurred in March 2025 when users worldwide were abruptly disconnected, unable to access feeds, send DMs, or interact at all.
Earlier, in December 2022 and July 2023, large-scale disruptions also paralyzed X for hours, with user activity grinding to a halt and similar difficulties in getting timely information from the company’s help channels.
X’s reputation for stability has taken a hit since Musk’s arrival, in part because these breakdowns have become more common and longer-lasting. Power users, journalists, and even advertising partners have become vocal about their concerns and the need for reliable service.
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History shows how major outages are becoming a repeated pattern rather than isolated incidents. This change is especially apparent when comparing pre- and post-Musk eras in terms of technical reliability and responsiveness.
Musk’s Cyberattack Claim During March Outage
During the March 2025 global outage, Elon Musk publicly stated that the disruption was due to a cyberattack. This claim, made without presenting supporting evidence, drew attention from both the tech community and security experts. The lack of detail left many questioning the exact nature of the supposed attack.
Analysts and journalists pressed for clarification, but information remained scarce. Without specifics, speculation grew about whether technical failures or maintenance oversights could be behind the outages instead.
This episode fits a broader pattern: X leadership has sometimes used external threats as a framing device for internal issues. However, without transparency, such claims struggle to gain traction among the platform’s most engaged users.
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The march outage and Musk’s remarks highlight growing anxiety within the X community. As trust in platform infrastructure comes under new pressure, leadership’s explanations – even when dramatic – need clear evidence to reassure the public.
History of Layoffs at X After Musk’s Takeover
After buying Twitter and renaming it X in 2022, Elon Musk moved quickly to cut costs. About 80% of the company’s workforce was let go, shrinking headcount from 7,500 to 1,300. These massive layoffs began just days after the acquisition finalized, stunning both employees and industry observers.
The company’s engineering team was hit especially hard, and other departments, from communications to product management, saw significant job cuts. As the year went on, further layoffs hit, especially when key projects fell behind or as Musk shifted priorities.
Cutbacks extended well into 2023 and 2024, affecting support, trust and safety, and compliance teams. In November 2024, a new wave of layoffs struck, again affecting mostly engineers and technical support workers.
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This rapid downsizing left deep holes in institutional knowledge and continuity, and created widespread uncertainty inside the company about future investment in reliability and product stability.
Impact on X’s Engineering Team
Layoffs at X shrunk the full-time engineering roster to just 550 by January 2023, down from thousands before Musk’s buyout. By the time of the May 2025 outage, the team responsible for platform stability and new features had been radically reduced.
This level of downsizing greatly limited X’s capacity to handle major disruptions and respond quickly to emerging problems. Many former engineers noted in interviews that both monitoring and rapid incident-response teams were slashed or disbanded.
The new engineering headcount often focused almost entirely on mission-critical bugs or high-visibility launches, with less time spent on improving basic reliability or infrastructure health. This shift in focus has left the company exposed to outages longer and unable to recover as quickly as users expect.
Many in the tech industry point to this as a reason for more frequent outages. Shifts in responsibility, loss of history, and fewer hands on deck all factor into X’s current reality – where large user-facing problems take longer to detect, fix, and communicate about than in previous years.
