Elon Musk warns users against WhatsApp and Signal as Meta is sued over encryption claims

elon musk

• Elon Musk claims WhatsApp and Signal are not secure, promotes X Chat instead
• Meta faces lawsuit alleging WhatsApp misleads users about message privacy
• Meta denies claims, asserts WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption with Signal protocol.

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Elon Musk’s sharp warning about messaging apps this week didn’t come out of nowhere. The X owner was reacting to a new lawsuit against Meta Platforms that challenges WhatsApp’s long-standing claims about privacy and security.

In a post on X, Elon Musk wrote: “WhatsApp is not secure. Even Signal is questionable. Use X Chat.” The comment came as users were discussing a Bloomberg report about an international group of plaintiffs suing Meta Platforms, alleging that the company has misled users about how private WhatsApp messages really are.

According to the lawsuit, filed in a US District Court in San Francisco, Meta’s claims around WhatsApp’s “end-to-end encryption” are false. End-to-end encryption is meant to ensure that only the sender and recipient can read messages — not even the company that runs the service. WhatsApp prominently tells users that “only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share” their messages.

The plaintiffs, who include users from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa, allege that Meta and WhatsApp actually store, analyze, and can access the contents of users’ private communications. The complaint accuses Meta and its leadership of defrauding WhatsApp’s billions of users worldwide and cites unnamed whistleblowers as the source of these claims.

Meta has strongly denied the allegations. A company spokesperson called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said Meta plans to seek sanctions against the plaintiffs’ lawyers. Andy Stone, speaking for the company, said any claim that WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is “categorically false and absurd,” adding that WhatsApp has used the Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption for over a decade.

Reacting to news, Will Cathcart tweeted, "This is totally false. WhatsApp can’t read messages because the encryption keys are stored on your phone and we don’t have access to them. This is a no-merit, headline-seeking lawsuit brought by the very same firm defending NSO after their spyware attacked journalists and government officials."

The lawsuit is now seeking class-action status, though lawyers involved have so far declined to comment publicly.

Musk’s tweet also raised eyebrows because it questioned Signal, an app widely trusted by journalists, activists, and privacy experts for its open-source design and minimal data collection. Musk offered no technical evidence to explain why Signal is “questionable,” which led many users to push back.

At the same time, Musk promoted X Chat as an alternative, reinforcing his broader push to turn X into an all-in-one platform for communication, payments, and content. However, critics note that X has yet to publicly release detailed information about how X Chat secures user messages.

For now, Musk’s comment has added fuel to an already heated debate — one that blends courtrooms, encryption claims, and the growing distrust many users feel toward Big Tech platforms promising privacy in an increasingly data-driven world.