 "Musk’s total net worth is now $350 billion. Reuters/File Photo")
As Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a major global outage on Monday, disrupting several major websites and apps, Elon Musk took the opportunity to promote his own platform — X chat — as a secure and independent alternative.
“Messages on X chat are fully encrypted with no advertising hooks or strange ‘AWS dependencies,’ so I can’t read your messages even if someone put a gun to my head,” Musk wrote on X, adding that users can also send files and make audio or video calls.
The outage affected platforms such as Snapchat, Fortnite, Robinhood, Coinbase, Duolingo, and Perplexity AI, while Amazon’s own services — including Prime Video and Alexa — also reported issues, according to Downdetector.
AWS said it was facing “increased error rates and latencies” across several services, tracing the problem to its US-East-1 region in Virginia — one of the world’s largest cloud hubs. Engineers were reportedly working to restore operations.
The disruption is the biggest since the 2024 CrowdStrike malfunction, which had paralyzed hospitals, airports, and banks worldwide.
Because AWS powers about a third of the global cloud market, any outage has a wide-reaching impact. Companies including Coinbase, Robinhood, and Perplexity AI confirmed service disruptions tied to AWS problems.
Gaming services like Fortnite, Roblox, and Clash of Clans, as well as financial and ride-sharing apps such as Venmo, Chime, and Lyft, also went down. In the UK, banks like Lloyds and telecom providers Vodafone and BT reported similar issues.
Amid the chaos, Musk posted a short message highlighting that his own platform had no trouble running: “X works.”