Elon Musk says X was knocked offline by ‘massive cyberattack’ that originated in ‘Ukraine area’

Billionaire entrepreneur and DOGE chief Elon Musk claimed Monday that X went dark as the result of a “massive cyberattack” that originated in the “Ukraine area.”

“We’re not sure exactly what happened,” Musk told Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow about the apparent operation targeting his social media platform.

“But there was a massive cyberattack to try to bring down the X system, with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area,” the world’s richest man added.

Musk, 53, did not immediately provide additional evidence of who may have been responsible.

Cybercriminals have been known to create false IP addresses to impersonate computer systems from different parts of the world, a practice known as “spoofing.”

Experts told The Post it was highly improbably that Ukrainian government actors were the perpetrator of such an audacious and far-reaching attack one day before diplomats from Washington and Kyiv meet in Saudi Arabia.

“It makes absolutely no sense for Ukrainian hackers to attack Elon Musk the day before a meeting between the United States and Ukraine in which they are attempting to get the United States to start sharing intelligence again, and provide aid and assistance, working towards a peace agreement that has been in question since the Oval Office visit,” the Atlantic Council’s Alex Plitsas told The Post on Monday.

“The question everyone looking at this needs to ask themselves is, ‘who benefits from this?’ And it’s not Ukraine.”

While other actors — such as the cyber-hacking group Anonymous, which has been vocal about their opposition to Musk — may have some impetus to attack X, only Russia would have the motive to link or frame Ukraine to the hack.

“Anonymous is another likely possibility based on the statements they put out publicly and the capability and desire to hit (Musk), but in terms of who stands to benefit based on the timing — the only one is really the Russians, because doing it today would disrupt the talks that are scheduled for tomorrow,” Plitsas said. “The only people that would stand to benefit from that would be the Russians in the sense that they’re blaming the Ukrainians, so they would want the Ukrainians to look bad and disrupt the talks.”

What’s more, Russian cyber actors likely have more time on their hands to carry out such an attack after the US last week halted offensive cyber operations on Moscow.

Thousands of social media users reported outages on X throughout the day on Monday.

Reports started pouring in at 6 a.m., according to DownDetector.com, with more than 40,000 users claiming issues with the platform by 10 a.m.

Another 25,000 users had encountered problems on the X app as of Monday afternoon, according to the crash-tracking site.

“It’s up,” Musk said when asked by Kudlow about the current state of the platform shortly before 5 p.m. ET.

The X boss had blamed a “massive cyberattack” for the widespread outage earlier in the day but did not pinpoint the epicenter of the attack. 

“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” he wrote on X. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.” 

One day earlier, Musk had boasted about how his technology has been propping up the Ukrainian military.  

The tech tycoon provided the Kyiv government with access to Starlink terminals shortly after Russia’s February 2022 invasion. The terminals’ ongoing operation has been key to Ukrainian military operations.

“I literally challenged Putin to one one-on-one physical combat over Ukraine and my Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army,” Musk wrote on X, in response to a user that accused him of preferring Russia to Ukraine in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. 

“Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off,” he added. 

Musk, like President Trump, has been critical of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s reluctance to engage in peace talks with the Kremlin. 

“What I am sickened by is years of slaughter in a stalemate that Ukraine will inevitably lose,” he said Sunday. “Anyone who really cares, really thinks and really understands wants the meat grinder to stop. PEACE NOW!!”