US is yet to determine whose behind cyberattack and outage on Musk’s X
U.S. officials have not determined who was behind an apparent cyberattack on the social media site X that restricted access to the platform for thousands of users, according to a Trump government official knowledgeable with the ongoing investigation.
Monday’s outage was described as a cyberattack by the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the issue and spoke Tuesday on the condition of anonymity. The official added that the Republican administration handles all cyberattacks against American businesses especially but emphasized that the U.S. government had not gleaned any intelligence about who might have been behind the attack.
The remarks came after Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X and a leading adviser to President Donald Trump, claimed in an appearance on Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow” show that the cyber attackers had “IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area” without running into detail on what that might mean.
Cybersecurity professionals quickly pointed out, regardless, that this doesn’t necessarily mean that the attack originated in Ukraine.
His electric vehicle firm has encountered some headwinds as he’s evolved as the face of Trump’s effort to dramatically shrink the dimension of government through DOGE. Its stock declined by 15% on Monday, its biggest one-day loss since September 2020.
Critics maintain Musk’s shift to right-wing politics doesn’t seem to sit well with potential Tesla buyers, typically perceived to be wealthy, environmentally mindful liberals who have shifted to electric vehicles in an endeavor to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
Tesla has also been a target of protests and vandalism in the U.S. and elsewhere over Musk’s push for large-scale federal government dismissals, contract cancellations, and other budget-slashing actions. Trump said on his social media platform that he’ll purchase a Tesla on Tuesday to indicate “confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American.”
“Why should he be punished for putting his tremendous skills to work in order to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN???” Trump said.
