Amid a major global outage that hit Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday and disrupted numerous popular websites and apps worldwide, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took a dig at the tech giant. While taking aim at AWS, Musk promoted his own platform, X Chat, as a more reliable and independent alternative.
What Did Elon Musk Say?
Reposting a post that read, “Switch to X Chat,” Musk highlighted the platform’s strong privacy features, stating that all messages are fully encrypted, with no ads or hidden dependencies like those tied to AWS. He even emphasised over user privacy of the X chat platform. Billionaire Musk also noted that X Chat supports file transfers and audio/video calls, positioning the platform as a secure and independent alternative to mainstream communication apps.
“The messages are fully encrypted with no advertising hooks or strange “AWS dependencies” such that I can’t read your messages even if someone put a gun to my head. You can also do file transfers and audio/video calls,” Musk wrote on X.
The messages are fully encrypted with no advertising hooks or strange “AWS dependencies” such that I can’t read your messages even if someone put a gun to my head.
---Advertisement---You can also do file transfers and audio/video calls. https://t.co/l0GIIZYz6y
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2025
AWS Outage
Notably, a widespread internet disruption affecting a myriad of sites on Monday has been the result of a major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage. Dozens of popular games and websites, including Snapchat, Roblox, Fortnite, Duolingo, and Ring were experiencing issues.
Users began reporting problems at approximately 8 AM UK time, with Down Detector showing massive, simultaneous spikes in outage reports for services that rely on Amazon’s cloud infrastructure. The issue for international websites appears to stem from problems faced by Amazon’s massive data center facilities in North Virginia, a critical epicenter that holds key importance for the global internet.
Amazon also acknowledged the problem on its AWS service status page. The company confirmed that it is investigating “increased error rates” and delays affecting multiple services across the internet.
