Reports are appearing across social media that users of Elon Musk’s platform X are experiencing endless loops and, in some cases, are being locked out of their accounts. This follows a mandatory two-factor authentication change that appears to have malfunctioned.
On October 24, X announced it was asking users who rely on passkeys or hardware security keys for two-factor authentication to re-enroll using the x.com domain. Users who employ an authenticator app for two-factor authentication are not affected by this change.
The company stated this was part of an effort to retire the older twitter.com domain, a change which took effect in May 2024. The issue is that passkeys and security keys are digitally linked to the old twitter.com domain and cannot be automatically transferred to x.com. This required users to manually un-enroll and then re-enroll using the new domain.
X had warned that after November 10, accounts would be locked until users completed the re-enrollment process or selected a different two-factor authentication method. Now that the deadline has passed, many users report being locked out and unable to re-enroll their passkey or security key, encountering error messages or getting stuck in endless loops.
This is the latest problem to affect X, which was purchased by Elon Musk for forty-four billion dollars. Since he took charge of the social networking site, the company has undergone massive layoffs and been involved in countless controversies.
X did not respond to a request for comment. Elon Musk, who now owns the platform, has been posting as usual and appears to be unaffected by the change.