By Rachel Kim, Senior Correspondent
Elon Musk has pledged a return to a relentless “24/7” work schedule following a significant global outage on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The disruption, traced to a fire at a critical Oregon data center, impacted tens of thousands of users and revealed major vulnerabilities in the platform’s redundancy infrastructure. In response, Musk announced plans to sleep at his workplaces to personally supervise crucial technological deployments and reiterated his dedication to restoring and advancing the performance of his companies.
Fire Triggers Global Outage on X Platform
The outage occurred after a fire broke out in a server battery room at a data center in Oregon. Though the fire was quickly contained and did not spread beyond the affected section, the event caused widespread downtime across X. Users around the world reported issues ranging from delayed timelines to complete inaccessibility of services for hours. The incident has put a spotlight on the fragility of digital infrastructure, particularly the use of lithium-ion batteries for backup power, and underscored the need for more resilient failover systems.
Technicians at the facility responded immediately to the emergency, and fire safety protocols ensured no injuries were reported. However, the downtime revealed a critical lack of server redundancy—an area Musk acknowledged must be overhauled.
Musk Promises Hands-On Supervision of Tech Rollouts
In a company-wide message shared publicly, Musk described the outage as “unacceptable” and vowed to personally oversee system upgrades, platform stability enhancements, and infrastructure modernization. He declared that he would be “back to sleeping on the factory floor” if needed, echoing his well-known work ethic during Tesla’s early production surges.
The entrepreneur stated that he will now divide his time between his core ventures—Tesla, SpaceX, X, and Neuralink—devoting his full attention to improving operations and customer trust. Acknowledging the scope of the disruption, Musk emphasized that resilient infrastructure is paramount to sustaining user confidence in digital platforms.
Stepping Back from Government Advisory Role
As part of his renewed focus, Musk announced that he will scale back his involvement in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a volunteer advisory board he helped establish to streamline U.S. federal operations. The initiative, while popular among fiscal conservatives, had increasingly drawn criticism from investors who worried that Musk’s political involvement distracted from his business priorities.
With this shift, Musk aims to restore focus to Tesla’s slowing sales and SpaceX’s critical development milestones, including an upcoming Starship launch that he described as “mission-critical” for the future of interplanetary exploration. He assured stakeholders that he is re-aligning leadership across his companies to reduce dependencies and streamline decision-making.
Reassuring Investors and Users Alike
The outage and Musk’s swift reaction have reignited discussions about leadership bandwidth and business resilience. Tesla’s recent delivery figures have underperformed expectations, and SpaceX faces competitive pressure in both commercial launches and government contracts. Musk’s return to intensive management is widely seen as a strategic effort to reassure both Wall Street and the consumer base that he remains fully engaged.
His announcement has already produced ripples in the tech world, prompting conversations among executives about infrastructure audits and redundancy planning. Some experts believe the Oregon fire could serve as a wake-up call for broader reassessments of data center fire safety, especially with the increasing reliance on battery systems.
A Reaffirmation of Musk’s Legacy Work Style
This move marks a return to the high-intensity leadership style that Musk is known for—one that involves deep immersion in operations, late-night meetings, and direct involvement in engineering decisions. His decision to physically position himself in his companies’ facilities is both a symbolic and practical step to ensure that major system upgrades and product developments are executed flawlessly.
Musk closed his announcement with a call to action for his teams: “There is no substitute for excellence, and that requires showing up, solving problems, and staying focused—no matter what time it is.”
