Elon Musk Unveils Encrypted Chat to Replace DMs on X

Elon Musk has begun rolling out X Chat, a new full-stack communication system on X. On Thursday, the platform’s owner and CTO announced that the feature is entering beta and is currently available to a limited group of users. X Chat replaces the long-standing Direct Messages (DM) system and introduces several upgrades, including full end-to-end encryption, large file transfers, and disappearing messages.

In a tweet and post, Musk stated: “X just rolled out an entire new communications stack with encrypted messages, audio/video calls and file transfer.” This follows his statement last month that X Chat will be published as a separate platform. That has not yet happened, but users may already use the feature through the social media platform.

Musk sees X Chat as a major upgrade to the platform’s messaging system as part of his broader vision to turn X into an “everything app.” The feature will include disappearing messages, end-to-end encryption, file sharing, unread markers, and audio/video calling. Musk has emphasized that messages should be fully private similar to Signal that only the sender and recipient can access them.

Musk also emphasised the move has one that positions X as a competitor to WhatsApp, which he has criticized as insecure despite Meta’s claims that WhatsApp messages are fully encrypted and not used for targeted ads. WhatsApp maintains that neither it nor Meta can access users’ messages.

Encryption was a major concern for Chat. Currently, DMs are not encrypted by default, but paying customers can have encrypted conversations in a different tab. Chat overcomes this separation by combining all talks into a single fully encrypted layer. Even texts that were not encrypted prior to the transition will now be secure. 

In the past, Musk has likened the encryption capacity to that of companies like Signal and Meta-owned WhatsApp.

Users who get this upgrade will first need to set up a four-digit Chat PIN. They won’t be able to access their messages until they’ve set it up. The PIN code will thereafter need to be entered each time they access the interface. Every time they wish to respond to a message, a number of X users have expressed their dissatisfaction with this additional tier of authentication.

In a separate post, Christopher Park, Head of X Developer Platform, stated that the company has just introduced numerous new products, including Grokipedia, X Chat, and the X API beta. It also plans to offer a big upgrade to Grok Imagine, with video durations of up to 15 seconds, X Money, and a completely Grok-powered X stream soon.

The push for encrypted messaging comes amid long-standing criticism of X’s security record, both before and after Musk’s takeover in 2022. In 2024, hackers seized the U.S. SEC’s X account and posted false Bitcoin news after gaining access through a linked phone number; the account lacked two-factor authentication. A former Twitter executive also claimed in a 2023 lawsuit that Musk cut the company’s security budget in half and dismantled key systems for cooperating with law enforcement. Even prior to Musk’s ownership, Twitter suffered major security failures, including the 2020 breach where a teenager gained control of high-profile accounts belonging to Musk, Biden, Obama, Kim Kardashian, Bill Gates, and others.

Musk’s decision to build X Chat a competitor to WhatsApp comes as his battle with Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta intensifies. Threads, a text-based social platform founded in 2023, has recently performed better than X in key metrics, surpassing Musk’s site in daily active users for the first time in October. X’s mobile traffic has plummeted over the last year, falling 13.3% year on year from 148.5 million daily active users to 128.8 million as of October.