Bluesky goes down amid exodus from Elon Musk's X / Twitter

Cloudy skies.
By
Tim Marcin
 on 
bluesky logo on a computer and phone
Credit: Photo Illustration by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Bluesky appeared to crash on Thursday amid a surge in users as they apparently fled Elon Musk's X / Twitter.

A status page for the Twitter alternative said some systems were down as of about 5:15 p.m. ET. Down Detector saw a bit of a spike in reports at the same time.

It's not yet clear how widespread the issue is, but the app was not loading for me on both desktop and the app on my phone. When I went to the site or app all I got was a spinning circle, as if it were trying to load. Down Detector showed a large spike in reports of issues earlier Thursday as well.

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It's perhaps expected that Bluesky might have issues. Amid Musk's high-profile support for President-elect Donald Trump lots of users made an exodus for Bluesky. It skyrocketed to the top of Apple's App Store, adding approximately 100,000 users per day since last week's election.

With all that added traffic, it might not be a surprise that Bluesky would have some growing pains.

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Tim Marcin
Associate Editor, Culture

Tim Marcin is an Associate Editor on the culture team at Mashable, where he mostly digs into the weird parts of the internet. You'll also see some coverage of memes, tech, sports, trends, and the occasional hot take. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes), Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).


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