--- title: "Panicked Elon Musk Asked Twitter Employees to Stop Building New Features as Site’s Infrastructure Crumbles" description: "If you were on Elon Musk-owned Twitter at all yesterday evening, you may have noticed: it was broken. Unsurprisingly, things apparently weren't chill at HQ." date: "2023-02-09" modified: "2023-02-09" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-twitter-sites-infrastructure-crumbles" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "social media" - "the digest" - "twitter" --- # Panicked Elon Musk Asked Twitter Employees to Stop Building New Features as Site’s Infrastructure Crumbles ![If you were on Elon Musk-owned Twitter at all yesterday evening, you may have noticed: it was broken. Unsurprisingly, things apparently weren't chill at HQ.]() *\Image: NurPhoto via Getty / Futurism\* ## Falling Apart If you were on Twitter at all yesterday evening, you may have noticed: it was broken. If you tried to tweet outright, you were hit with a pop-up that said you'd already reached your "daily limit," even if you hadn't tweeted at all that day. People turned to scheduling their tweets, seemingly the only way to post on the platform at all. As if that wasn't enough, [users found]() they were unable to follow other tweeters, while the platform's direct messaging feature crumbled pretty much entirely. You couldn't start a new message, and in some cases, users began to receive some, uh, *unexpected* messages. "Got an empty DM from myself. I have the option to block me too," [tweeted]() videogame historian Frank Cifaldi, upon receiving a blank direct message from... his own account. "This site rules." Throughout it all, things were apparently not chill over at Twitter HQ. Twitter support [posted]() a "sorry for the trouble" apology note, and [according to *Fortune*](), Twitter CEO Elon Musk sent a pretty clear drop-what-you're-doing email to Twitter's staffers around the time of the outage, urging them to forgo the development of any new features for the time being. "Please pause for now on new feature development in favor of maximizing system stability and robustness," reads the email, which was reviewed by *Fortune*, "especially with the Super Bowl coming up." https://twitter.com/kyliebytes/status/1623458872106311680 ## Scary Sunday In a second email, also reviewed by *Fortune,* Musk reportedly added that Twitter "should also pause on transitioning away from" its data centers in Sacramento and Atlanta and "\[reduce Google Cloud Platform\] usage until at least next week." Musk is certainly right to worry about getting his platform in working order for the Super Bowl, as major sporting events tend to drive significant spikes in usage. But thankfully for him, the platform does appear to be back on track today. That said, last night's outage comes on the heels of a string of [platform glitches]() and [general chaos]() regarding a series of new product rollouts, most of which haven't exactly worked out on the first try. And backdropping these problems, of course, is the reality that Twitter teams are currently [pretty thin](), and reportedly attempting to work in [conditions]() that don't exactly behoove productivity. Anyway. Sending positive thoughts to the [tiramisu]() that is Twitter's code, may it hold through Super Bowl Sunday. **READ MORE:** [*Elon Musk emails Twitter staff to pause 'new feature development' during glitch that told users they were 'over the daily limit' and blocked them from posting*]() **More on Twitter:** [*Elon Musk's Twitter Is Reportedly Failing Miserably to Contain Horrific Child Abuse Content*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()