WhatsApp shuts up Elon Musk once and for all

In a fit of rage, Elon Musk took to his social media platform, X, formerly Twitter, to accuse WhatsApp of exporting user data every night.

The Tesla chief executive, reposting another post about a 12-hour recap from last Saturday, wrote: "WhatsApp exports your user data every night. Some people still think it is secure."

Replying to Musk's post, head of WhatsApp’s development and strategy, Will Cathcat, said: "Many have said this already, but worth repeating: this is not correct. We take security seriously, and that's why we end-to-end encrypt your messages. They don't get sent to us every night or exported to us."

Later, security researcher Tommy Mysk picked up on Cathcart’s reply, clarifying that "WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, but user data is not only about messages. That also includes metadata such as user location, which contacts the user is communicating with, the patterns of when the user is online, etc. 

"This metadata, according to your privacy policy, is indeed used for targeted ads across Meta services. So @elonmusk is right."

This is Musk’s second outburst in just a few weeks; previously, he had accused messaging application Signal of working with the United States government.