Telegram founder calls WhatsApp users 'brain-dead' if they believe app is secure

Telegram founder Pavel Durov has attacked WhatsApp’s security after Meta, its parent company, faced a U.S. class-action lawsuit. The suit alleges the messaging app misled users about the privacy of its encrypted messages.

On Jan. 26, Durov wrote on X: “You’d have to be brain-dead to believe WhatsApp is secure in 2026. When we analyzed how WhatsApp implemented its ‘encryption,’ we found multiple attack vectors.”

Durov, the 41-year-old founder of Telegram, launched the platform in 2013. It has since grown to over one billion active users, becoming a leading global messaging service. Prior to launching Telegram, Durov created VK, one of Russia’s most popular social media networks.

According to Bloomberg, the Telegram CEO made his remarks after an international group of complainants filed a class-action lawsuit against Meta in a U.S. federal court last week.

. The suit alleges Meta made false claims about the privacy and security of WhatsApp messages.

The core issue of the lawsuit challenges WhatsApp’s central security promise: the default use of end-to-end encryption based on the Signal protocol. Despite in-app assurances that “only people in this chat can read, listen to, or share,” the plaintiffs assert that Meta and WhatsApp are, in fact, capable of accessing, storing, and analyzing virtually all of their users’ allegedly ‘private’ communications.

According to the complaint, undisclosed internal whistleblowers provided information that substantiates these allegations.

Meta rejected the indictments. “Any claim that people’s WhatsApp messages are not encrypted is categorically false and absurd,” said Andy Stone, a Meta spokesperson. He described the lawsuit as “foolish” and stated the company “will pursue sanctions against plaintiffs’ counsel.”

The debate broadened after Tesla CEO Elon Musk questioned WhatsApp’s security while promoting his own messaging service. “WhatsApp is not secure. Even Signal is questionable. Use X Chat,” he wrote.

WhatsApp head Will Cathcart dismissed the filing as “a no-merit, headline-seeking lawsuit,” asserting that the company is unable to read user messages. He explained that encryption keys reside locally on users’ phones, preventing WhatsApp from accessing them.

In contrast to WhatsApp’s use of Signal’s protocol for secure user communications, Forbes pointed out that neither Telegram nor X Chat offers the same level of comprehensive encryption.