Thousands of users around the world, including in the U.S., faced a widespread outage Friday afternoon on Twitter — now known as X. Starting just after 8:15 AM EST, users began reporting that the app and website were failing to load, with an error message reading: “Cannot retrieve posts at this time. Please try again later.” According to outage tracker Downdetector, more than 11,000 users reported problems in the span of an hour.
This marks the second major outage in less than 48 hours for Elon Musk’s platform, prompting a wave of frustration and criticism from users. Many took to other platforms and group chats to vent about the app’s instability, while others reignited calls for Musk to step down as head of the company. “Another day, another X debacle… Musk must go,” one user posted, echoing the sentiment of many.
Under Musk’s leadership, Twitter has been rebranded to X and gone through a series of controversial changes — from layoffs and new policies to increased reliance on AI-driven systems. While the billionaire insists that X is evolving into a more advanced and open platform, users say the service has become increasingly unreliable. Downtime, glitches, and erratic updates have plagued the app more frequently since the rebranding began.
For users in the U.S., the outage once again raises concerns about the reliability of a platform that many still depend on for breaking news, real-time updates, and communication. As frustration grows, some are beginning to explore alternatives like Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon. Whether or not Musk will respond to the backlash remains to be seen — but one thing is certain: X is testing the patience of its global user base.