Elon Musk says ‘Twitter needs to feel faster’ after thousands of users report outage overnight

Thousands of global Twitter users reported the site went offline in the past few hours, with Elon Musk blaming “significant changes to the backend server architecture” that should make the platform “feel faster.”

Around midnight GMT (4:00 p.m. PST), the global tracking website downdetector.com reported a huge spike in the number of Twitter users, which quickly surpassed more than 10,000.

Some users have reported receiving an error message saying “Something went wrong, but don’t worry – it’s not your fault”.

The rise stalled for about an hour, then rose to 5,000 just after 1:00 GMT (5:00 PM PST) before returning to normal in the early morning hours of December 29.

As always, all eyes were on CEO Musk’s response to the power outages that may be about to go.

Responding to one user, he first said “working for me” when others reported outages, before tweeting a few hours later: “Major changes to backend server architecture being introduced. Twitter should feel faster.”

It is currently difficult to estimate what changes have been made and when they will take effect.

Musk’s reign following his $44 billion Twitter buyout in October has been riddled with chaos and upheaval.

After laying off at least half of the tech giant’s employees, Musk recently said he would step down as CEO once he “finds someone stupid enough to do the job” after asking website users if he no longer is not at work. – with 57% yes votes.

In the past two weeks, he has reversed a hastily drafted policy banning ads for other platforms and reinstated a number of journalists who had been suspended after Musk claimed they had “obfuscated his location.”

EU officials have previously threatened sanctions against Musk’s self-proclaimed freedom of expression for violating the Digital Services Act over the suspension of journalists.