Elon Musk and Telegram chief executive Pavel Durov publicly criticised WhatsApp this week following a class action lawsuit in the United States that challenges the messaging service’s privacy practices and its claims of end-to-end encryption.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California as Shirazi et al. v. Meta Platforms Inc. et al., accuses Meta, WhatsApp, and Accenture of unlawfully intercepting and storing private messages. According to the complaint, whistleblowers informed federal investigators that certain employees and contractors allegedly had access to encrypted messages via internal tools or code loopholes. Plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial along with compensatory and punitive damages.
Musk amplified the lawsuit on X, saying users could not trust WhatsApp and urging them to switch to X Chat. Durov called WhatsApp’s encryption “the biggest consumer fraud in history,” accusing the service of reading and sharing user messages despite its privacy guarantees. Neither Musk nor Durov provided technical evidence backing their claims.
Can’t trust WhatsApp https://t.co/Ts55gVXqkD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 9, 2026
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 🤝 pic.twitter.com/2DYguybgoU
— Pavel Durov (@durov) April 9, 2026
WhatsApp strongly rejected the allegations, calling them “categorically false and absurd.” The company stated that its service has used end-to-end encryption via the Signal protocol for nearly a decade, ensuring messages remain visible only to senders and recipients. Meta also described a similar case filed earlier this year as “a frivolous work of fiction.”
The claims in this lawsuit are categorically false and absurd. WhatsApp has been end-to-end encrypted using the Signal protocol for a decade so your messages cannot be read by anyone other than the sender and recipient.
— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) April 9, 2026
The latest wave of criticism reflects growing tension among major messaging platforms as each seeks to position itself as the leader in secure communications. Musk and Durov’s renewed attacks underscore both the competitive stakes and the reputational risks surrounding privacy claims in the encrypted messaging market.
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