X Experiences Widespread Outage: DMs Down for Over 10 Hours Amid User Frustration

By Staff, Agencies

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, experienced a significant outage beginning the evening of Thursday, May 22, leaving many users unable to access certain parts of the site.

According to Downdetector, reports of issues began surfacing around 8 p.m., with users struggling to log in, load webpages, or use the app altogether.

By Friday morning, May 23, the situation had improved for most functions—except for direct messages [DMs], which remained unusable for many. Users expressed frustration, saying that while they could send messages, recipients weren’t able to see them. Some noted that DMs had been down for over 10 hours.

The outage sparked a wave of complaints and speculation. Some users directed blame at X owner Elon Musk, with posts suggesting that platform reliability has worsened under his leadership. "This app has gone down more times this year than the original Twitter ever did," one user remarked.

No official statement has been released by X or Musk. However, some users have speculated that the issue may be related to behind-the-scenes work on “XChat”—a rumored upcoming messaging feature meant to rival WhatsApp.

Supporters of this theory urged patience, arguing that a temporary outage could be part of a broader upgrade that will ultimately improve the messaging experience.

Despite the ongoing inconvenience, others called for perspective: “Can they seriously not live without DMs for a day?” one user wrote, while another echoed, “We don’t know the exact reason yet—let’s wait and see.”