Durov and Musk Challenge WhatsApp Encryption Claims in Lawsuit

Tech executives Pavel Durov of Telegram and Elon Musk of X have publicly challenged WhatsApp's claims of end-to-end encryption, amid a class-action lawsuit accusing Meta, WhatsApp's parent company, of misleading users about the platform's privacy protections. The lawsuit, filed in a San Francisco federal court earlier this year, alleges that Meta permits employees and third-party contractors, including those from Accenture, to access private user messages despite the company's assurances that such communications remain secure and inaccessible to outsiders.

Durov escalated the criticism in a post on X on April 9, 2026, stating, "WhatsApp's encryption may be the biggest consumer fraud in history, deceiving billions of users. Despite its claims, it reads users' messages and shares them with third parties. Telegram has never done this and never will." Musk echoed these concerns in his own X post that day, writing, "Can't trust WhatsApp," and promoting X Chat as an alternative that provides "actual privacy" for messaging, voice, and video calls. He further claimed that WhatsApp exports user data nightly, urging followers to switch platforms.

The lawsuit, brought by plaintiffs from...