Elon Musk-owned X faces brief outage before quickly recovering. Here's what happened

X, formerly Twitter, suffered a major U.S. outage Thursday, with Down Detector showing over 20,000 users reporting problems on the platform.

Updated on: Jan 22, 2026, 23:24:54 IST

By Shamik Banerjee

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X, the Elon Musk-owned platform formerly known as Twitter, faced a massive outage on Thursday in the United States with thousands of users reporting facing issues with it.

Down Detector, a platform that tracks such outages based on users' data, showed that more than 20,000 users in the United States reporting problems with X.

At the peak of the outage, more Down Detector showed around 20,000 users facing problems with the platform. However, the outage was brief and lasted for around 10 minutes, before it came back up. The number of reports on Down Detector also dropped.

Here's a graph of the X outage reports in the last 24 hours, with a strong spike seen in the most recent part. Here's a photo of the X outage graph on Thursday.

Nearly 20,000 X users in the US reported facing an outage on Thursday. (Down Detector)

Down Detector showed that the outage was divided nearly equally between users of the platform on mobile apps as well as on browsers. 50% said that their app was not working, 47 said the website was not, while 3% noted that they were not able to log in.

Also read: What caused Verizon outage? Expert finds timing ‘suspicious’ amid US-Iran tensions

X Outage Map: What To Know

The map of the outage in the United States available on Down Detector showed that the outage was concentrated in most major cities. Among the most affected were cities in the East and West Coast. New York, Washington, and Boston in the East Coast, and San Francisco and Los Angeles on the West Coast saw major outages.

As of this writing, the platform has not specified what cause the outage.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shamik Banerjee
Shamik is a journalist covering the United States for Hindustan Times. He has more than four years of experience reporting on US politics, sports, and major breaking stories across fast-moving cycles. He previously worked at Times Now and Sportskeeda, building strong newsroom instincts and digital storytelling skills. At HT.com, he focuses on day-to-day coverage of US political developments while also handling high-impact stories that demand speed, accuracy, clarity, and context under pressure. Shamik has extensive experience covering NFL game days over the past two years, coordinating live updates, analysis, and explainers. He is particularly drawn to large news moments such as US elections and the Super Bowl, where he thrives at the news desk working alongside the team. He holds degrees in Media Studies from Jamia Millia Islamia and English Literature from Jadavpur University. Before entering journalism, he briefly worked in digital marketing and political consultancy roles. Currently a Senior Content Producer at HT Digital, he is driven by curiosity, discipline, and a constant desire to explore new and obscure topics. Outside work, he enjoys reading, films, sports, and learning continuously.Read More

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