X Global Outage Confirmed Amid Cloudflare Technical Issue

A major X global outage has left thousands of users unable to access the social media platform worldwide. The disruption began on Tuesday morning, November 18, 2025, around 1118 GMT (14:18 UTC). Downdetector.com, an outage tracking site, quickly registered a massive spike in user-reported problems. The widespread service degradation was directly linked to a major technical issue at internet infrastructure company Cloudflare.

The platform, owned by Elon Musk, faced accessibility issues for both its mobile app and web users globally. The concurrent Cloudflare problem affected numerous other major online services, including ChatGPT and Spotify. This widespread failure highlights the internet’s reliance on a handful of key infrastructure providers.

Widespread Service Failures Due to Cloudflare Technical Issue

The platform X global outage was traced to a major service degradation affecting the Cloudflare network. Cloudflare, a critical content delivery network and security provider, confirmed it was experiencing an “internal service degradation.” This technical failure began around 11:48 UTC (14:48 GMT) and resulted in “widespread 500 errors” across its network.

Outage reports for X spiked dramatically, with over 11,000 incidents reported globally at the peak, according to Downdetector. Users experienced problems logging in, loading new posts, and accessing their feeds. The mobile app was particularly hard hit, with a majority of reported problems related to its functions. Other high-profile services, including the AI chatbot ChatGPT and the music streaming service Spotify, also confirmed major outages.

Cloudflare later confirmed it had identified the core issue and was implementing a fix, stating a fix was in place around 14:42 UTC. The company said it saw a “spike in unusual traffic” to one of its services, which caused the widespread errors. This single-point-of-failure event sparked renewed concerns about the concentration and fragility of core internet services. Experts noted that a failure at one major cloud provider can quickly cascade across the entire online ecosystem.

Internet Infrastructure Fragility and Broader Impact

The technical failure at Cloudflare created a significant domino effect, taking down critical communication and business tools alongside social media. For users, the X global outage meant a temporary loss of an essential real-time news and communication channel. Businesses, journalists, and government services that rely on X for immediate public interaction were significantly impacted. Reports also indicated problems for various e-visa portals and other critical online services globally.

Cloudflare eventually implemented changes allowing some services, like its WARP access, to recover quickly. The company continued to monitor for errors, noting that some customers might observe higher-than-normal error rates. The swift response was critical for service restoration across the internet.

The recent X global outage, driven by an issue at Cloudflare, underscored the critical need for better redundancy across the internet. While the service was restored, the incident serves as a stark reminder of the challenges inherent in concentrating essential web services. Companies must continuously prioritize system resilience to prevent such far-reaching global failures.

FYI (keeping you in the loop)-

Q1: What caused the X global outage today?

The X global outage was caused by a widespread technical issue, or “internal service degradation,” at Cloudflare. Cloudflare is a major internet infrastructure company that provides network services to X and many other platforms.

Q2: Which major services were also affected by the Cloudflare problem?

In addition to X, major online services affected by the Cloudflare issue included OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Spotify, Canva, and the game League of Legends. Many websites globally experienced “500 errors.”

Q3: When did Cloudflare say the issue was resolved?

Cloudflare confirmed it had identified the issue and implemented a fix around 14:42 UTC (18:42 GMT). Services then began to recover, though monitoring for errors continued.

Q4: Did X or Elon Musk release an official statement?

No immediate official statement was issued by X or Elon Musk regarding the cause or impact of the downtime, though the issue was confirmed by external monitoring sites and Cloudflare.

Q5: Why are Cloudflare outages so widespread?

Cloudflare manages a critical layer of global internet infrastructure, providing content delivery and security for millions of websites. When its core systems fail, it creates a single point of failure that cascades across all dependent services.

References

Cloudflare Status. (2025). Cloudflare Global Network experiencing issues update. November 18.

Sky News. (2025). X, Spotify and ChatGPT down for thousands of users. November 18.

Reuters. (2025). X down for thousands of users around the world – Downdetector. November 18.