Users of Elon Musk-owned social media platform X were having trouble accessing their accounts on Monday. The site came back online briefly only to go down again. The reason for the cut is not yet clear, but Mr Musk has blamed it on an ongoing "massive" cyber attack.
The billionaire owner of X said the platform gets attacked every day but that this latest was "done with a lot of resources".
"Either a large, co-ordinated group and/or a country is involved," he said on his account after X came back on line. "Tracing."
In response to his post, X user Hassan Sajwani wrote, "They want to silence you and this platform," to which the Mr Musk replied, "Yes."
Later on Monday during an interview with Larry Kudlow on Fox Business channel, Mr Musk was asked about the alleged cyber attack.
“We’re not sure what happened,” he said.
“There was a massive cyber attack trying to bring down the whole system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area.”
Whatever or the origin of the outage, many around the world were met with a message for several hours on X that read: “Posts aren't loading right now."
DownDetector, a website that tracks internet cuts, reported two significant spurts of user problems with X between 4am and 11am ET. NetBlocks, which tracks cyber security and digital governance, also confirmed the cut.
“X (formerly Twitter) is experiencing international outages, but the incident is not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering,” a post from NetBlocks read.
By several estimates, X is used by about 600 million users, making it one of the most popular social media sites globally. It was bought by Tesla and SpaceX tycoon Mr Musk in 2022, who cut staff throughout the company.
His support of US President Donald Trump, coupled with ample posts containing misinformation and disinformation, has thrust X into various controversies, prompting several advertisers to leave the platform, and causing hundreds of thousands of users to flee.
X's dominance has also been chipped away at with the debut of Meta's Threads platform and BlueSky, which many consider to be a decentralised version of it.
In addition to social networking, X has also ventured into the AI space, by incorporating xAI's Grok 3 chatbot into the platform for users signing up for premium services.
As of the writing of this article, X appeared to be working, although still occasionally glitchy. X and Elon Musk have not yet posted about the cut to the service.
Dr Amal Khalid Alias revealed a recent case of a woman with daughters, who specifically wanted a boy.
A semen analysis of the father showed abnormal sperm so the couple required IVF.
Out of 21 eggs collected, six were unused leaving 15 suitable for IVF.
A specific procedure was used, called intracytoplasmic sperm injection where a single sperm cell is inserted into the egg.
On day three of the process, 14 embryos were biopsied for gender selection.
The next day, a pre-implantation genetic report revealed four normal male embryos, three female and seven abnormal samples.
Day five of the treatment saw two male embryos transferred to the patient.
The woman recorded a positive pregnancy test two weeks later.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The five pillars of Islam
Closing the loophole on sugary drinks
As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.
The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.
Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.
Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
Not taxed:
Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.
Blonde
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AIDA%20RETURNS
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THE%20SPECS
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
