Elon Musk says WhatsApp ‘cannot be trusted,’ announces encrypted Twitter messages

Elon Musk slammed Meta’s WhatsApp messaging app messaging service over privacy concerns — even as he announced that Twitter will be releasing its own encrypted messaging feature.

Musk took a jab at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday in response to a screenshot tweeted by Twitter engineer Foad Dabiri, which he claimed revealed that WhatsApp had been using Dabiri’s microphone multiple times throughout the night.

The screenshot showed Dabriri’s microphone was on as early as 4:20 a.m. — “when I was asleep,” Dabriri tweeted — through 6:53 a.m.

“WhatsApp cannot be trusted,” Musk wrote in his retweet of Dabriri’s screenshot.

The Meta-owned app responded to Dabriri’s tweet as well, claiming the issue was “a bug on Android that mis-attributes information in their Privacy Dashboard.”

In a follow-up tweet, WhatsApp clarified that the app can “only access the mic when a user is making a call or recording a voice note or video — and even then, these communications are protected by end-to-end encryption so WhatsApp cannot hear them.”

WhatsApp also said it “asked Google to investigate and remediate.”

Musk also announced on Tuesday that Twitter would be launching its own encrypted messaging –. a feature that enables only the users in a given chat to read their messages, blocking access even for the company that operates the service.

Twitter’s encrypted direct messages (DMs) could be available to users as early as May 10, when a “V1.0” update is scheduled to take place, Musk tweeted on Tuesday. “I could not see your DMs even if there was a gun to my head,” Musk wrote.

It remains unclear if encryption applies to both one-on-one messaging and group chats. Musk also hasn’t said if Twitter users will have to opt-in to encrypted messaging, or if it will be automatic.

In an effort to enhance Twitter’s in-app communications, users can now also reply to any message in a DM thread — not just the most recent one — and use emojis to react to messages, similar to Apple’s iMessage features.

Musk also said that “coming soon will be voice and video chat from your handle to anyone on this platform, so you can talk to people anywhere in the world without giving them your phone number.”

Zuckerberg’s Facebook offered end-to-end encryption with DMs in 2016 — before the chat function was called Messenger and Facebook’s parent company became known as Meta.

WhatsApp — which then-Facebook bought in October 2014 for around $22 billion — offered encryption even earlier, in 2012. Recently, the feature has seemingly faulted, according to multiple Twitter and Reddit users who took to the respective platforms to share evidence that their WhatsApp microphones have been activated in the background of the app without their knowledge.

A Reddit thread from late 2022 revealed WhatsApp users attempting to fix the bug but calling WhatsApp support “totally useless” when its only suggestion was to repeatedly delete and re-download the app.

For Android users looking to turn off the microphone when not using WhatsApp, look to the green dot that appears in the device’s top right corner. The green dot is visible when WhatsApp — or any other app — is using the device’s microphone on an Android.

Tapping the green icon will show a pop-up with more details, where users can select an app and then choose to give it microphone and camera access.

Reddit users called the process “a bit of a pain” since it must be done at the end of every WhatsApp call.

On an iPhone, users must head into the Settings app, tap on WhatsApp from their list of notifications, and toggle off the microphone permissions.

An iPhone user can tell if WhatsApp is accessing their microphone by an orange dot that will appear in the top right corner, although tapping the dot won’t prompt a pop-up like it will on Androids.

As if calling WhatsApp untrustworthy wasn’t enough, Musk, whose never been shy to call out Zuckerberg, did so again on Tuesday when he tweeted a 2021 article by The Federalist that claimed Zuckerberg “bought” the 2020 election through more than $400 million in donations.

“Interesting article,” he tweeted. He also tagged Twitter’s Community Notes account — which calls out potentially misleading tweets and provides context to avoid misinformation — to “add further context & corrections.”

He then replied to the tweet suggesting Zuckerberg is “extremely partisan” as Musk clearly believes Zuckerberg’s donations contributed to the 2020 presidential election results that were in favor of Joe Biden.