Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter), has once again publicly questioned the trustworthiness of WhatsApp, urging users to switch to X’s own messaging features instead.
On April 9, 2026, Musk replied with a simple but pointed statement — “Can’t trust WhatsApp” — to a post highlighting a new class-action lawsuit against Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company. The lawsuit accuses Meta of secretly allowing employees, contractors (including those from Accenture), and third parties to read, intercept, and store users’ private messages, despite the app’s strong marketing claims of end-to-end encryption (E2EE).
The original post claimed that WhatsApp’s promise — “only you and the recipient can read your messages” — is “a total lie,” alleging that Meta misled billions of users worldwide. Musk followed up by recommending X Chat as a better alternative, stating it offers “actual privacy” for messaging, voice, and video calls.
Meta’s Strong Denial
Meta has firmly rejected the allegations, calling them “false and absurd.” The company reiterated that WhatsApp uses the widely respected Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption, meaning messages are encrypted on the sender’s device and can only be decrypted by the recipient. According to Meta, neither WhatsApp nor Meta itself can access the content of those messages.
The lawsuit, which seeks damages and aims for class-action status, relies on claims from alleged whistleblowers but has faced skepticism for lacking clear technical proof of a cryptographic breach in the encryption itself.
Not the First Time
This is not Musk’s first critique of WhatsApp. In May 2023, he posted “WhatsApp cannot be trusted” after a former Twitter engineer shared screenshots from Android’s Privacy Dashboard. The screenshots appeared to show WhatsApp accessing the phone’s microphone repeatedly, including while the user was asleep. WhatsApp attributed the report to a bug in how Android displays microphone usage data, not actual unauthorized listening.
Musk has long expressed skepticism toward Meta’s privacy practices. He has pointed to the exodus of WhatsApp’s original founders, who reportedly left the company amid disagreements with Meta and later supported privacy-focused alternatives like Signal. His comments often come alongside promotion of X’s growing messaging capabilities, which now include end-to-end encrypted chats.
Broader Privacy Concerns
While the core technical implementation of WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption is generally considered robust by security experts, ongoing debates focus on related issues such as:
- Metadata collection (who is talking to whom, when, and for how long)
- Cloud backups that may not be end-to-end encrypted by default
- Internal data handling and third-party contractor access
Critics, including Telegram founder Pavel Durov, have joined the conversation, with some calling WhatsApp’s encryption claims one of the “biggest consumer frauds” in history.
What This Means for Users
WhatsApp remains one of the world’s most popular messaging apps, with billions of monthly active users, largely due to its ease of use and widespread adoption. However, repeated high-profile criticisms from figures like Musk highlight growing public interest in verifiable privacy.
For those concerned about privacy, experts commonly suggest:
- Using fully open-source and independently audited apps like Signal
- Avoiding cloud backups where possible or enabling encrypted backups
- Regularly reviewing app permissions on your device
- Being aware that no app is immune to legal requests or potential implementation flaws
Musk’s latest remark fits into his broader rivalry with Meta and his vision for X as an “everything app” with built-in, privacy-focused communication tools.
Whether the ongoing lawsuit uncovers substantive evidence or gets dismissed remains to be seen, as such cases can take months or years to resolve. In the meantime, users are left to weigh convenience against the privacy assurances — and criticisms — surrounding major messaging platforms.
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