• A global outage at X locked out thousands of users due to authentication failures during domain migration
  • Service was restored within hours after engineers rolled back problematic security changes
  • The incident highlights ongoing technical challenges since Elon Musk's acquisition and platform rebranding

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, experienced a widespread service disruption that prevented thousands of users worldwide from accessing their accounts over the past 24 hours. The outage was primarily tied to authentication failures as the company continues its transition from the legacy twitter.com domain to x.com.

According to people familiar with the matter, the problems emerged when users were unexpectedly prompted to re-enroll their security keys, particularly YubiKeys, due to changes in how the platform handles two-factor authentication across domains. Error messages including requests to "re-enroll your yubikey" and generic "something went wrong" alerts flooded user screens, with reports peaking at tens of thousands globally within just a few hours.

Engineers worked through the night to roll back the problematic changes, and service was largely restored within hours of the initial disruption. However, the company has not yet released an official statement explaining the technical root cause or addressing user concerns about the stability of authentication systems during the ongoing domain migration.

The outage comes as X continues to navigate significant technical transitions following Elon Musk's 2022 acquisition and the subsequent rebranding from Twitter. Internal restructuring has included substantial layoffs across technical and product teams, which some industry observers suggest may be impacting the platform's ability to manage complex infrastructure changes smoothly.

A spokesperson for X did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether the company plans to compensate business partners or premium subscribers affected by the service interruption.

This marks at least the third significant outage tied to the platform's domain migration and authentication systems this year, with similar incidents reported in early July affecting comparable numbers of users globally. The pattern suggests ongoing challenges in managing the technical backbone of one of the world's most prominent real-time communication platforms.

Competitors including Meta's Threads and Bluesky saw temporary spikes in user activity during the disruption, though most users returned to X once service was restored. The incident underscores the platform's continued importance in real-time news dissemination and business communications, despite increased competition in the social media landscape.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the timing of previous outages; similar incidents occurred in July 2025, not 2024.