A significant outage at Cloudflare, the internet infrastructure giant, caused widespread disruptions to major online services including ChatGPT and X on Tuesday, November 18, 2025. The service interruption began in the early morning hours and affected thousands of users across multiple platforms.
Timeline of the Service Disruption
The technical issues were first reported around 7:53 AM EST on November 18, 2025, with Cloudflare confirming the outage shortly thereafter. Service updates continued throughout the morning, with the most recent update posted at 8:21 AM EST. During this period, users attempting to access popular services encountered error messages and connectivity issues.
Downdetector, the service that tracks online outages, showed thousands of reports from X users in the United States alone. The platform formerly known as Twitter experienced significant accessibility problems, with many users unable to load content or post updates.
Impact on Major AI and Social Platforms
The outage had a particularly noticeable effect on ChatGPT, OpenAI's popular AI chatbot service. Users reported being unable to access the service or experiencing extremely slow response times during the peak of the disruption.
Cloudflare provides critical infrastructure services including content delivery networks, DDoS protection, and domain name system services to numerous internet companies. When their systems experience problems, the effects cascade across multiple platforms that rely on their technology.
Broader Internet Implications
While ChatGPT and X were among the most prominent services affected, the outage likely impacted numerous other websites and online platforms that depend on Cloudflare's infrastructure. The company serves millions of web properties globally, making any service interruption potentially far-reaching.
This incident highlights the increasing centralization of internet infrastructure and how dependent modern web services have become on a handful of major infrastructure providers. When one key player experiences technical difficulties, the effects can ripple across the entire digital ecosystem.
Service restoration efforts were underway throughout the morning, with Cloudflare engineers working to identify and resolve the root cause of the outage. The company has not yet released detailed information about what specifically triggered the widespread service disruption.
