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On Monday, a major outage at Amazon Web Services Numerous websites and apps were affected, including the end-to-end encrypted messenger Signal. In response, Elon Musk, Executive Chairman and Chief Technical Officer of X, responded claims that he no longer trusts Signal. “I don’t trust Signal anymore,” Musk stated clearly.
To be clear, the centralized infrastructure that Signal relies on does not necessarily compromise encrypted communications over Signal because Signal does not have the keys to the encrypted data stored on that infrastructure.
PSA: We are aware that Signal may not be available for some people. This appears to be related to a major AWS outage. Stand to.
– Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) October 20, 2025
Signal President Meredith Whittaker replied to Musk’s contribution
In recent months, Musk has promoted the use of X Chat as a method of secure, encrypted communication between its users. However, security experts have noted that any encrypted messaging app should be open source if it is to be trusted with secure communications, in addition to other concerns. After all, how is anyone supposed to know what the app actually does if they can’t look at the code?
Try 𝕏 Chat, our new encrypted communication system for text messaging, file transfers and audio/video calls.
Activate via the left menu. https://t.co/HxVP7zQDej
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2025
X itself describes X Chat, which will eventually replace the traditional direct messaging system, as beta software on its platform. There was Reports in 2018, X (then known as Twitter) tested end-to-end encryption; However, there was no official support announcement for the feature until 2023. X has also stated that they plan to eventually make it easier to verify that their chat features are as safe and secure as they claim.
It was Jack Dorsey, who originally co-founded X as Twitter and ran the company for years open During his time as CEO, he drove this move toward end-to-end encryption. Over a recent weekend, Dorsey “vibecoded” a geo-targeted messaging app called Bitchat.
Bitchat gained notoriety during the recent fall of the Nepalese government due to the app’s mesh networking capabilities, which allow it to function in localized areas without internet access. An app with similar functions called FireChat was used during the protests in Hong Kong already in 2014.
Of course, Signal isn’t perfect either and has received a lot of criticism over the years. Signal’s reliance on phone numbers was consistently portrayed as a bad idea by security researchers until the messaging app was introduced Recently, users have been able to log in with just one username.
Notably, Whittaker received some backlash today from several developers who worked on Bitcoin over her comments about Signal’s openness and verifiability. Peter Todd, who is perhaps best known for this Accusation that he is the Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto In an HBO documentary released earlier this year, he pointed out that the app stores on Android and iOS make it difficult for users to confirm that the open source code running on users’ devices actually matches the code published by Signal.
Additionally, there have been issues with reproducibility for over a year, and the issue keeps getting closed due to lack of interest in a solution https://t.co/487B9bhMUC@elonmusk Please ensure that X-Chat prioritizes reproducible builds
— Steve Lee (@moneyball) October 20, 2025
Todd has contributed over the years to Bitcoin Core, a Bitcoin node software that strictly adheres to activation reproducible buildswhich allow end users to verify that an app was built from the same open source code published elsewhere. Steve Lee, head of Bitcoin open source development grant provider Spiral, also noted that there is an open issue related to reproducible builds for Signal on Android.
Apparently, Bitcoin purists who talk endlessly about the benefits of decentralizing the network also have a problem with Signal’s reliance on centralized infrastructure, which led to this morning’s downtime in the first place.
Whether it’s Bitcoin or private messaging, compromises often have to be made when balancing perfect privacy and security with developing a user-friendly app that users will actually use. Signal is still the standard when it comes to encrypted messaging, but more competition in this space never hurts as long as it has a proven track record of trustworthy privacy.
