Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and Space
Speaking on Friday’s “Joe Rogan Experience” show, Musk said that He described a peer-to-peer-style model and said the goal is to make Chat “the least insecure” among messaging apps. He added that the encryption is “very good” and is undergoing extensive testing.
Musk linked his security speech to business design. He said rival messengers introduce risks when they include “ad hooks,” arguing that any avenue used to target ads could become an avenue for reading messages if abused. He said that X Chat will not include such hooks.
Distribution will be two-way. “We’ll have both,” Musk said, highlighting a dedicated app designed “in a few months,” along with the integrated experience within X. In either version, users should be able to text, share files, and make audio or video calls once the full feature set arrives.
The current situation is more modest. Today, within X, Chat serves as an updated replacement for legacy direct messages and is in beta for Premium subscribers. In-app chat supports text, photos, media attachments, GIFs, and file sharing linked to X identifiers instead of phone numbers. Musk cited audio and video calls as part of the plan, but they do not appear in the current version of X.
Musk’s framework focuses on two ideas: keeping content end-to-end encrypted and limiting what the service needs to know by removing ad targeting logic. Conventional messengers often encrypt message content but retain metadata such as counterparts and timestamps; Their view is that reducing reliance on advertising reduces the attack surface.
