Musk questions security of popular messaging apps, urges use of X Chat

WASHINGTON

US tech billionaire Elon Musk cast doubt Monday on the security of widely used messaging platforms, saying neither WhatsApp nor Signal can be fully trusted.

"WhatsApp is not secure. Even Signal is questionable. Use X Chat," he said on his social media company X’s platform.

Musk also shared a recent Bloomberg report that said a lawsuit claims that WhatsApp owner Meta can see chats in breach of privacy.

According to the report, an international group of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc. in US District Court in San Francisco, alleging that the company has made false claims about the privacy and security of its WhatsApp chat service.

In the lawsuit, they allege that Meta and WhatsApp “store, analyze, and can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications” and accuse the companies and their leaders of defrauding WhatsApp’s billions of users worldwide.

Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, rejected claims which suggest people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted as "categorically false and absurd."

“WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade. This lawsuit is a frivolous work of fiction," Stone said in an email, according to Bloomberg.

The filing credits information provided by “whistleblowers” for exposing the issue but offers no details about their identities.