Social media platform X owner Elon Musk and Telegram CEO Pavel Durov have raised questions about WhatsApp’s privacy. Musk said that WhatsApp cannot be trusted. Meanwhile, Durov called it the biggest ‘encryption’ fraud in history. This controversy started after a new class action lawsuit filed against WhatsApp in the US. This lawsuit was filed in January this year by two users named Brian Y. Shirazi and Nida Samson in the Federal Court of California. Meta Platforms and Accenture have been made parties to it. The petitioners have demanded a jury trial and appealed for damages from the company. WhatsApp reading private messages despite encryption A petition filed in a US court has claimed that WhatsApp intercepts its users’ messages in between. The company claims that its messages are ‘end-to-end encrypted’, meaning no third party can read them except the sender and receiver. However, according to the lawsuit, Meta is sharing these messages with third parties like Accenture. Musk and Durov say ‘biggest deception in history’ Elon Musk posted on X writing, “WhatsApp cannot be trusted.” He appealed to users to use X chat and claimed that ‘real privacy’ is available there. Meanwhile, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov also said that WhatsApp’s ‘encryption’ could be the biggest consumer fraud in history, misleading billions of users. Durov claimed that Telegram has never done this and never will. Meta says allegations are completely false and absurd Meta has immediately clarified these serious allegations. A company spokesperson said, “The claims made in the lawsuit are completely false and absurd. WhatsApp has been using the Signal Protocol for the past decade. No one except the sender and receiver of your messages can read them. The feud between Musk and Zuckerberg is old The dispute between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg is nothing new. After Musk bought Twitter (now X), Zuckerberg launched ‘Threads’ to compete with it. In 2025, Musk claimed his AI chatbot ‘Grok’ was better than Meta AI. In June 2023, Musk also challenged Zuckerberg to a ‘cage fight’, to which Zuckerberg responded by asking for the location. Demand for damages from California Federal Court This class action lawsuit against WhatsApp was filed in January this year by two users named Brian Y. Shirazi and Nida Samson in a California Federal Court. Meta Platforms and Accenture have been made parties to it. The petitioners have demanded a jury trial and appealed to the company for heavy damages. Currently, the case is in court and the eyes of the entire world are fixed on it. Knowledge Box: What is End-to-End Encryption? In simple words, end-to-end encryption is a security technology that converts your message into a secret code, which only the sender and receiver can read. In between, the internet service provider, hackers, or even the service providing company (like WhatsApp or Meta) itself cannot see or hear your messages, photos, or calls.
