Telegram CEO Pavel Durov calls people ‘Braindead’ for believing WhatsApp is secure

Pavel Durov

• Telegram CEO Durov called belief in WhatsApp's security in 2026 "braindead"
• Meta faces lawsuit alleging WhatsApp misleads users about privacy and encryption
• The debate raises fresh concerns over trust in Big Tech's privacy promises

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The debate over WhatsApp’s privacy claims is getting louder — and sharper. Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has weighed in on the controversy, bluntly saying that anyone who still believes WhatsApp is secure in 2026 is “braindead.”

Durov’s comment came in response to a Bloomberg report detailing a new lawsuit against Meta Platforms, the parent company of WhatsApp. The lawsuit, filed in a US District Court in San Francisco, accuses Meta of misleading users about WhatsApp’s privacy and end-to-end encryption.

In his post on X, Durov claimed that Telegram had previously analysed how WhatsApp implemented its encryption and found “multiple attack vectors,” suggesting that the system was never as secure as users were led to believe. “You’d have to be braindead to believe WhatsApp is secure in 2026,” he wrote, using unusually harsh language even by his standards.

The lawsuit that triggered the reaction alleges that Meta’s privacy claims are false. While WhatsApp tells users that end-to-end encryption ensures that only the sender and recipient can read messages, the plaintiffs argue that Meta actually stores, analyses, and can access the substance of users’ communications. The case has been brought by an international group of plaintiffs from countries including India, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, and South Africa, and cites unnamed whistleblowers.

Meta has strongly rejected the accusations. A company spokesperson called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said any claim that WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is “categorically false and absurd.” Meta maintains that WhatsApp has used the Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption for nearly a decade and that it cannot read users’ private messages.

Still, the report — and the strong reactions that followed — have reignited long-standing concerns around Big Tech’s promises of privacy. Durov has frequently positioned Telegram as a more transparent alternative, arguing that users should rely on systems that can be independently verified rather than corporate assurances.

His remarks also follow comments by Elon Musk, who recently claimed that WhatsApp is “not secure” and questioned even Signal’s reliability, urging users to move to X Chat instead.

For everyday users, the growing public spat highlights a deeper issue: trust. While companies insist their encryption works as advertised, lawsuits, whistleblower claims, and rival CEOs telling users not to believe the hype are making many rethink what “secure messaging” really means — and who, if anyone, deserves their confidence.