Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) faced multiple outages on Monday due to what appeared to be a significant cyberattack. Elon Musk, the owner of X, initially claimed that the attack was linked to Ukraine, citing IP addresses from the region as evidence. However, the situation became more complex when a pro-Palestinian hacking group, Dark Storm Team, took responsibility for the assault. This conflicting information has sparked widespread debate over the origins and motives behind the cyberattack.

Musk stated in an interview with Fox News that the attack required substantial resources, suggesting it could only have been orchestrated by a well-organized group or even a nation-state. He pointed to Ukrainian IP addresses as evidence but admitted uncertainty about the exact source. Meanwhile, Dark Storm Team, known for targeting entities supporting Israel’s military actions in Gaza, claimed responsibility via Telegram. They revealed they had launched a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack against X. Cybersecurity experts remain skeptical of Musk’s claims, emphasizing that DDoS attacks can be executed by independent groups without state-level backing. The use of IP addresses, they argue, is often misleading since hackers typically route their activities through various global locations.

The incident disrupted X’s services worldwide, affecting thousands of users at its peak. According to outage monitoring site DownDetector, nearly 39,000 users in the U.S. alone reported issues during the attack, though the number later dropped to around 1,500. This disruption comes amid growing geopolitical tensions involving Musk, who recently highlighted his Starlink service as critical to Ukraine’s defense efforts while expressing doubts about the country’s long-term prospects in the ongoing war. As investigations continue, the conflicting narratives surrounding the cyberattack underscore the complexities of attributing such incidents in an era of heightened digital and political warfare.