Economy
Musk blames cyberattack for major X outages
SAN FRANCISCO
Elon Musk said X was hit Monday by a major cyberattack, raising questions as to whether the politically divisive billionaire is being targeted or his decision to gut staff at what was once Twitter is haunting the social network.
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Reports of problems with X started early Monday, with users in Asia, Europe, and North America saying they could not access the platform, according to the Downdetector tracking site.
“There was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X,” Musk said in a post on the platform, which was working sporadically as the day wore on.
The SpaceX and Tesla boss also blamed a cyberattack, although he provided no evidence, for crashing the site last year when an interview with Donald Trump was about to be streamed on it.
Musk shared a post from an account called DogeDesigner suggesting that the latest cyberattack was another burst of animosity towards him, in line with recent protests against the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that he leads and vandalization of Tesla facilities.
Musk speculated that such an attack would take tremendous resources, and that it was the work of a country or large coordinated group.
During an interview on Fox Business, he alleged that computers used in the attack appeared to have digital addresses in the Ukraine area and that X was still trying to figure out exactly what happened.
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Cybersecurity experts say that it is difficult to assess the situation without being able to see into X operations, but the duration of the trouble is a sign of an attack.
“It’s cyberwar hitting at full force,” said Chad Cragle of cyber defense platform Deepwatch.
“With Musk in the spotlight and political tensions at a peak, these attacks bear all the indicators of nation-state aggression.”
Ax wielding
Trump responded last week to growing criticism over unprecedented cuts to the U.S. government overseen by his billionaire advisor Musk, saying they should be carefully targeted.
“We say the ‘scalpel’ rather than the ‘hatchet,'” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social.
The president’s message represents the first significant move to rein in the power accorded to Musk, as DOGE works toward gutting federal staffing and spending.
DOGE’s cost-cutting campaign has faced increasing resistance on multiple fronts, including court rulings and some pressure from lawmakers.
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Trump confirmed that he had convened his cabinet to deliver the message that they, not Musk, were in charge of their departments.
Outages on the X social media platform left tens of thousands of users unable to access the site intermittently over the course of hours, according to monitors.
At the peak, more than 40,000 people reported outages, the site said.
After Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022, the majority of employees left or were fired, raising concerns about whether staffing was in place to keep the platform safe and stable.
Under his ownership, the platform has experienced technical issues and reinstated accounts of right-wing conspiracy theorists and Trump.
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Advocacy groups say misinformation has flourished on X under Musk, who has come under fire for spreading it to his huge online audience.
STOCKHOLM
Sweden’s government said it will hold talks with food producers and distributers as a consumer movement over soaring costs in the Nordic country gains traction.
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Annual food price inflation in Sweden hit its highest rate in two years in February at 3.9 percent.
Meanwhile, the independent watchdog site Matpriskollen (The Food Price Checker) found in January that prices in Swedish grocery stores had risen by 19.1 percent over two years.
“In view of the rapid price developments in the first months of the year and the rising prices in recent years, the Minister of Finance and Rural Affairs Minister will invite selected actors from the food supply chain for talks,” the government said in a statement.
The aim of the talks is to “listen to the industry’s assessment of the situation and work together to lower prices for customers,” it added.
The move comes as a viral online campaign calling for a boycott of major grocery stores next week has picked up speed.
One of the campaigners, Annika Morina, told newspaper Aftonbladet that she reached her breaking point buying tomato puree on Valentine’s Day.
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“It had gone up 50 percent. I’ve seen these kinds of boycotts in countries in the Balkans and felt: ‘Why don’t things like that happen in Sweden?’,” she said.
She posted a video to TikTok calling for the boycott which has received tens of thousands of views and according to Aftonbladet thousands are expected to join the boycott.
Consumers in Croatia frustrated by soaring prices massively joined two boycott calls in January, sending daily sales down by over 40 percent.
LONDON
Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves (C) meets with defence suppliers at RAF Northolt on March 6, 2025 in Ruislip, west of London. Reeves met with UK defence suppliers to Ukraine.
The British government said on March 14 that it would increase its export credit facilities for weapons manufacturers by two billion pounds ($2.6 billion) to boost overseas sales.
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The new funds “will see billions of pounds unlocked for U.K. defence companies that export overseas, driving economic growth and creating jobs across the U.K.,” it said in a statement.
Already the U.K. Export Finance agency has a lending capacity of eight billion pounds specifically for government clients of defence contractors, bringing the new total to 10 billion pounds.
Like other countries across Europe, Britain is racing to beef up its military production capabilities in the face of an expansionist Russia, pressure on European members of NATO to spend more on defence, and questions over President Donald Trump’s commitment to U.S. protection of Europe.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged ahead of a White House visit in February to boost defence spending to 2.5 percent of the economy by 2027, with the aim of hiking it to 3.0 percent in the next parliament.
“The world is changing, and we must bring about a new era of security and renewal that protects working people and keeps our country safe,” Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said in the statement.
ANKARA
The services production index increased by 6 percent on an annual basis in January, gathering pace from the previous month’s 2.6 percent rise, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) showed on March 14.
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The monthly increase in the index also quickened from 1.3 percent in December to 2.5 percent in January.
The index for transportation and storage services increased by 3.2 percent year-on-year but declined by 0.5 percent month-on-month.
Accommodation and food services rose 9.6 percent from a year ago and 0.5 percent compared to the previous month, the statistics authority said.
The annual and monthly increases in the index for information and communication services were 9.9 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively.
Real estate services rose 8.9 percent year-on-year, according to TÜİK data.
The prevalent price-setting behavior in the services sector leads to significant inertia and causes the impact of shocks on inflation to extend over a long time period, the Central Bank said in the summary of the March 6 Monetary Policy Committee meeting released on March 13.
Services inflation remains higher than goods inflation, it said, adding that having slowed down in the final quarter of 2024, services inflation increased in January due to the effects of items with time-dependent pricing.
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