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Elon Musk urges users to switch to X Chat after raising WhatsApp privacy concerns
WhatsApp maintains that its end-to-end encryption ensures messages are coded and can only be read by the sender and the recipient, not even by the company itself.
WhatsApp maintains that its end-to-end encryption ensures messages are coded and can only be read by the sender and the recipient, not even by the company itself.
Elon Musk on Tuesday criticised Meta-owned WhatsApp and Signal over security concerns and urged users to switch to X Chat, the messaging feature available on his social media platform X.
Elon Musk shared a post claiming that WhatsApp can read users’ private messages despite offering end-to-end encryption and stated that WhatsApp is not secure, that Signal is also questionable, and that users should instead use X Chat.
The comments came amid legal action against Meta Platforms over WhatsApp’s data practices. According to a Bloomberg report published on Sunday, Meta has been sued by an international group of plaintiffs over alleged privacy and data security violations linked to WhatsApp.
WhatsApp is not secure. Even Signal is questionable.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 27, 2026
Use ???? Chat. https://t.co/MWXCOmkbTD
The plaintiffs include individuals from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa. The lawsuit alleges that Meta and WhatsApp store, analyse and are able to access nearly all WhatsApp users’ communications that are described as private, and further claims that company employees have access to this data, Bloomberg reported.
WhatsApp head Will Cathcart denied the allegations in a post on X on Tuesday. Cathcart stated that WhatsApp cannot read messages because the encryption keys are stored on users’ devices and the company does not have access to them. He informed that the lawsuit lacks merit and was filed by the same firm that is defending NSO Group after its spyware was used to target journalists and government officials.
WhatsApp maintains that its end-to-end encryption ensures messages are coded and can only be read by the sender and the recipient, not even by the company itself. Meta has stated that end-to-end encryption is enabled by default on the platform. WhatsApp also informs users within the app that only participants in a chat can read, listen to or share the messages exchanged.
X Chat was launched last year by Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI and integrated into the X platform. It was positioned as a privacy-focused alternative to messaging services such as WhatsApp and Telegram.
Announcing the launch in June last year, Musk stated that X Chat includes encryption, disappearing messages and support for sending all types of files, along with audio and video calling features. He added that the system is built using the Rust programming language and a new architecture featuring what he described as Bitcoin-style encryption.
X Chat also allows users to make audio and video calls across devices without linking the service to a phone number.
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