X suffered service disruptions between May 22 and May 24, 2025, after a fire at Digital Realty’s PDX11 facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, where X leased space. X acknowledged a data-center outage, but it did not publish a technical postmortem proving that the fire directly caused every later disruption. A July investigation found that the fire began inside a Schneider Electric Galaxy VX uninterruptible power-supply (UPS) cabinet—not a lithium-ion battery installation.
What happened, in order
- Thursday, May 22, 2025: A fire alarm brought firefighters to Hillsboro Technology Park at about 10:21 a.m. They found heavy smoke in a second-floor power room at Digital Realty’s PDX11 facility. The fire stayed within that area, and personnel evacuated safely. WIRED’s initial report said no injuries were reported.
- Later on May 22: X’s engineering account said the platform was experiencing performance problems and a data-center outage. TechCrunch reported the statement.
- Friday, May 23: Users continued to report bugs and degraded features.
- Saturday, May 24: X experienced another widespread disruption. Downdetector peaked at roughly 25,000–26,000 reports in accounts cited by Yahoo Tech and Data Center Dynamics.
- July 2025: A later fire investigation identified the UPS cabinet as the origin and found no evidence that lithium-ion batteries caused the blaze. WIRED reported the findings.
It was not Musk’s privately owned data center
The headline’s shorthand is misleading. PDX11 was operated by Digital Realty, a colocation provider. X leased space there; the available evidence does not show that Elon Musk or X owned the building or campus. Digital Realty described the event as a fire-related incident at its PDX11 facility. That makes this a story about X’s dependence on hosted infrastructure, not proof of a Musk-built data-center site.
What actually caught fire?
Investigators determined that the fire started inside a Schneider Electric Galaxy VX UPS cabinet. One cabinet was destroyed and two neighboring cabinets were damaged. Digital Realty characterized the incident as electrical in nature. The investigator could not establish the precise ignition mechanism, leaving an electrical or mechanical failure possible.
A UPS does more than store energy. It conditions incoming electricity and provides temporary power when the supply is interrupted, helping data-center equipment ride through disturbances while generators or other systems respond. A UPS-room fire can therefore disrupt servers that were never directly burned by removing conditioned power, isolating electrical rooms, or forcing controlled shutdowns.
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- 425VA/260W Standby Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS): Uses simulated sine wave output to provide battery backup power and to safeguard home office, home entertainment including computers, gaming consoles, and broadband routers
- 8 NEMA 5-15R OUTLETS: Four battery backup & surge protected outlets; Four surge protected outlets; INPUT: NEMA 5-15P right angle, 45 degree offset plug with five foot power cord
- ADDITIONAL FEATURES: LED status light indicates Power-On and Wiring Fault, transformer-spaced outlets
- GREENPOWER UPS HIGH EFFICIENCY DESIGN: Reduces power consumption by utilizing a compact charger and power inverter to create an ultra-efficient backup power system for home and office use
- 3-YEAR WARRANTY – INCLUDING THE BATTERY; 75K USD Connected Equipment Guarantee; UL SAFETY CERTIFIED: Product has been tested in a UL certified lab and listed with UL as meeting or exceeding safety standards
Early accounts suggested that batteries might have been involved. The later investigation specifically corrected that impression: Digital Realty said the fire was not caused by lithium-ion batteries. Estimated data-center losses were about $260,000, and no injuries were reported. Local coverage described the response as lasting roughly five hours; KPTV reported on the duration.
Did the fire definitely cause X to go down?
The public record supports a careful answer rather than a simple yes.
- Confirmed: A fire occurred at a facility where X leased space, and X acknowledged a data-center outage during the same period.
- Strongly suggestive: The timing and location led multiple outlets to link the service problems to the facility incident.
- Not publicly proven: X did not disclose which systems failed, how traffic was routed, whether failover worked, or whether the May 24 outage was a direct result of the fire, residual damage, maintenance, or a separate infrastructure problem.
The defensible description is that X’s outages followed the Oregon fire and coincided with an outage X identified as data-center related. Saying “the fire knocked X offline” goes beyond the detailed technical evidence publicly released.
How large was the outage?
Users reported feeds that would not load, login trouble, and home pages that failed to refresh. App users were reportedly more affected than desktop users in coverage cited by Yahoo Tech. Downdetector’s roughly 25,000–26,000 reports indicate timing and relative scale, but they are not a census of affected people. Reports can be duplicated, geographically uneven, and amplified when an outage becomes news.
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- 1500VA / 900W RELIABLE BACKUP POWER: The highest VA capacity available for home use; delivers short-term battery power to keep essential devices powered during blackouts, surges, and unexpected power interruptions
- TEN PROTECTED OUTLETS: Power your entire setup with 5 battery backup outlets for essential devices, and 5 surge-only outlets for peripherals. Plus built-in coaxial and Ethernet surge protection for added peace of mind
- AUTOMATIC VOLTAGE REGULATION (AVR): Corrects low voltage brownouts (88V+) and surges (+/-13%) without draining battery. Boosts or trims to stable 120V. Extends runtime for blackouts; Active PFC compatible for gaming PCs
- REPLACEABLE BATTERY & ENERGY STAR UPS: User-replaceable battery (APCRBC124, sold separately) for zero-downtime swaps. ENERGY STAR certified for 92%+ efficiency, cutting energy costs vs standard UPS units
- LCD DISPLAY PANEL: Features an intuitive LCD screen that displays real-time status information including battery charge level, estimated runtime, load capacity, and input voltage for easy monitoring of your power protection system
The precise number of affected accounts was not publicly established. Reports described the disruption as global or widespread, but that label does not provide an exact customer count.
Why one facility could matter
Before Musk’s acquisition, Twitter was reported to operate facilities in Sacramento, Portland, and Atlanta. According to internal documents cited by WIRED, the Sacramento site was shut down around Christmas Eve 2022, and more than 2,573 server racks were subsequently moved to Portland and Atlanta.
That history does not prove that the shutdown caused the 2025 outage. It does explain why the fire prompted questions about resilience: reducing physical sites can lower lease, power, and staffing costs while increasing the potential impact of a single-site incident.
Redundancy has several layers
- Geographic redundancy: Independent facilities in different regions.
- Facility redundancy: Separate buildings, campuses, or colocation providers.
- Room and power redundancy: Multiple UPS units, generators, cooling systems, and network paths.
- Application redundancy: Services that can run independently and fail over without a shared dependency.
- Operational redundancy: Staff, access, runbooks, and tested recovery procedures.
Having Portland and Atlanta locations would not by itself guarantee uninterrupted service. Failover can fail or become slow when data replication lags, surviving sites lack spare capacity, a centralized control plane is unavailable, routes remain tied to the damaged facility, or dependencies such as authentication, search, media, or messaging cannot switch independently.
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- 1500VA/1000W PFC Sinewave Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS): Uses sine wave output to provide battery backup power for Active PFC & conventional power supplies; Safeguards computers, workstations, network devices, and telecom equipment
- 12 NEMA 5-15R OUTLETS: 6 battery backup & surge protected outlets, 6 surge protected outlets; INPUT: NEMA 5-15P right angle, 45 degree offset plug with 5 foot power cord; 2 USB charge ports (1 Type-A, 1 Type-C) quickly charge phones and tablets
- MULTIFUNCTION, COLOR LCD PANEL: Displays immediate, detailed information on battery and power conditions; Color display alerts users to potential issues before they can affect critical equipment and cause downtime; Screen tilts up to 22 degrees
- AUTOMATIC VOLTAGE REGULATION (AVR): Corrects minor power fluctuations without switching to battery power; UL SAFETY CERTIFIED: Product has been tested in a UL certified lab and listed with UL as meeting or exceeding safety standards
- 3-YEAR WARRANTY – INCLUDING THE BATTERY; $500,000 Connected Equipment Guarantee; FREE PowerPanel Management Software (Download)
What a contained fire can still disrupt
“Contained” means the flames did not spread beyond the affected area. It does not mean service consequences ended when the fire was extinguished. Smoke contamination, water or suppression-system effects, damaged electrical gear, safety inspections, restricted access, replacement equipment, and manual recovery can all extend an incident.
These are general data-center failure modes, not publicly confirmed details of X’s event. The reported investigation establishes the UPS origin, electrical character, equipment damage, and containment—not the exact path from that damage to each X feature.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What X and Digital Realty disclosed
X acknowledged performance issues and a data-center outage while it worked to remediate them, according to TechCrunch. In the cited coverage, X did not publish a detailed incident report identifying failed services, its failover sequence, restoration milestones, or the cause of the Saturday disruption.
Digital Realty confirmed the facility incident but did not identify customers or disclose customer-specific technical effects. The available reporting also does not establish sabotage or a cyberattack. The later investigation pointed toward an electrical or mechanical problem in the UPS cabinet, while leaving the exact ignition mechanism undetermined.
Rank #4
- 625VA/360W Standby Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS): Uses simulated sine wave output to provide battery backup power and to safeguard home office, home entertainment including computers, gaming consoles, and broadband routers
- 8 NEMA 5-15R OUTLETS: Four battery backup & surge protected outlets; Four surge protected outlets; INPUT: NEMA 5-15P plug with 5 foot power cord
- 2 USB CHARGING PORTS: Share 2.1 amps to charge and power tablets, smartphones, MP3 players, and other mobile devices; LED STATUS LIGHTS: indicates Power-On and Wiring Fault
- GREENPOWER UPS HIGH EFFICIENCY DESIGN: Reduces power consumption by utilizing a compact charger and power inverter to create an ultra-efficient backup power system for home and office use
- 3-YEAR WARRANTY – INCLUDING BATTERY; Connected Equipment Guarantee up to 100,000; PowerPanel Management Software (Available for Download); UL SAFETY CERTIFIED: Product has been tested in a UL certified lab and listed with UL as meeting or exceeding safety standards
What remains unknown
- Which X systems were physically or logically dependent on PDX11.
- Whether traffic shifted successfully to other locations and, if not, what blocked the transition.
- Whether the May 24 outage was directly caused by the fire or by continuing recovery and infrastructure problems.
- How much capacity was available in Portland, Atlanta, or any other X facilities.
- Whether X performed a private post-incident review that was not made public.
What the incident says about infrastructure choices
Colocation can provide specialist power, cooling, security, and facility operations without requiring a company to own a building. The trade-off is dependence on the provider’s electrical plant, emergency response, maintenance, access controls, and restoration process.
Organizations seeking stronger resilience can use active-active systems, in which services run concurrently in multiple regions; active-passive disaster recovery, where a secondary site takes over after a failure; cloud portability across regions or providers; or diversified colocation. Each approach trades cost and operational complexity against recovery speed and blast radius. Public reporting does not establish which of these designs X used.
Bottom line
The May 22, 2025 fire was real and occurred at Digital Realty’s PDX11 facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, where X leased space. X acknowledged a data-center outage as service problems unfolded, and a larger outage was reported on May 24. The later investigation found that an electrical incident began inside a Schneider Electric Galaxy VX UPS cabinet, not a confirmed lithium-ion battery fire. The timing makes a connection plausible, but without a detailed X postmortem, the precise technical chain from the fire to every outage remains unverified.
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