Will Cathcart, the CEO of WhatsApp, has retaliated against Elon Musk’s assertions that the messaging service “exports your user data every night.”
Mr. Cathcart said the accusation was “not correct” in a post on the news.
He cited the fact that WhatsApp conversations are completely encrypted, making it impossible for the firm to read them.
The head of Meta’s artificial intelligence division, Yann LeCun, has also joined in, refuting Mr. Musk’s assertions in a post that uses more formal terminology.
Further criticism of Mr. Musk came from Mr. LeCun on another Meta site, Threads, where he was charged with “spewing conspiracy theories” on his own social media network and making inconsistent and implausible assertions regarding artificial intelligence.
Mr. Musk has a well-established history of inciting controversy online, involving everything from fired former workers to submariners.
Since only the sender and recipient of a WhatsApp message can access its contents, Mr. Cathcart is correct in this instance.
The company is so dedicated to encrypting messages, in fact, that it once said that it would prefer to be blocked in the UK than have its encryption compromised.
But, Mr. Musk’s ambiguous statement that “user data” was being uploaded may instead be taken to refer to metadata, the extra data that is delivered with a message.
