Elon Musk admits Twitter is being hit by “several internal and external issues”.

Twitter users were unable to properly use the social media site on Wednesday evening after a series of “internal and external” problems.

Users on Elon Musk’s website found they could no longer follow accounts or access their direct messages – while the platform was experiencing a series of widespread technical issues.

The company tweeted through its “Support” account: “Twitter may not work as expected for some of you. Excuse the circumstances. We are aware of this and are working to fix it.

Elon later admitted: “Today several internal and external problems at the same time. Should be back on track later tonight.

Musk said the app was experiencing a number of technical issues as of Wednesday

A sign at Twitter headquarters is seen in San Francisco on December 8, 2022

Users first noticed the issue when they tried to tweet and received a message that they had reached their “tweet limit.”

According to DownDetector, around 6:00 p.m. EST, there was a surge in people saying they were having trouble with the social media site.

While Twitter has capped the number of tweets an account can send for years, it’s 2,400 a day — or 100 an hour — far more than most regular, human-run accounts sent on the platform.

Users also had problems when trying to follow another Twitter user, receiving the message “You can’t follow more people right now” with a link to the company’s policy on follow limits.

Twitter’s longstanding limit on how many accounts a single user can follow in a single day is 400 — again, more than a regular Twitter user would generally hit on any given day.

It’s not clear what caused Wednesday’s meltdown. But Musk assured users that everything would be back up and running later that night.

Earlier this year, news broke that Elon Musk broke the world record for amassing the biggest losses from his personal fortune in history – wiping £135 billion ($165 billion) from his fortune between November 2021 and December 2022, according to Guinness World Records .

It comes after the stock value of Musk’s electric car company Tesla fell about 65 percent after he bought Twitter last year, a move that spooked investors.

The losses beat a previous record of £47 billion set by Japanese tech investor Masayoshi Son in 2000.

In December, Bernard Arnault overtook Musk – who is now worth around £152bn – as the world’s richest person.

The figures are based on information from the publisher Forbes.

According to Guinness, Musk’s true losses could be higher than the figure given.

His £36billion takeover of Twitter sparked concerns among investors that Mr Musk wasn’t paying enough attention to Tesla.

The estimated loss is based on the value of its shares, which could regain their value. The value of Tesla shares has fallen by around 65 percent in 2022.