DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Telegram Chief Executive Officer Pavel Durov has launched a blistering attack on chief rival WhatsApp, branding its celebrated security protocols a “giant fraud” after the State of Texas sued its parent company, Meta, for allegedly spying on users.
The tech billionaire did not hold back in a scathing public statement, weaponizing a explosive consumer protection lawsuit to reignite a long-running, bitter feud over global data privacy and end-to-end encryption standards.
Okay News reports that the legal firestorm erupted on Thursday, May 21, 2026, when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a landmark lawsuit in a Harrison County district court. Brought under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, the state formally accuses Meta Platforms Inc. and WhatsApp LLC of systematically deceiving millions of citizens by falsely marketing the platform as a completely impenetrable vault. Citing a recent, highly sensitive U.S. Commerce Department whistleblower inquiry uncovered by Bloomberg, the lawsuit alleges that Meta operates a hidden, “tiered permissions system” that grants corporate employees and a massive network of third-party overseas contractors backdoor access to “virtually all” text messages, voice notes, and media files.
Seizing on the jaw-dropping allegations, Durov took to his platforms to dance on his competitor’s corporate misery. “WhatsApp encryption is a giant fraud,” the 41-year-old Telegram founder declared. “The state of Texas just sued WhatsApp for lying to users about privacy — because WhatsApp employees have access to ‘virtually all’ private messages. Now we know what WhatsApp’s founder meant when he said he ‘sold his users’ privacy.’” Durov’s sharp parting shot references a famous 2018 public confession by WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, who expressed deep remorse for selling the application to Mark Zuckerberg for $19 billion, admitting he traded his user base’s privacy for corporate wealth.
The high-stakes legal battle comes at a terrible time for Meta, which is already fighting a separate international class-action suit over its encryption integrity. Desperately scrambling to contain the fallout, Meta spokesman Andy Stone issued a swift corporate rebuttal on social media, dismissing the state’s claims as completely unscientific and fundamentally inaccurate. “WhatsApp cannot access people’s encrypted communications, and any suggestion to the contrary is false,” Stone insisted, pledging a aggressive defense in court. With Texas seeking permanent injunctions and a bruising statutory fine of $10,000 per violation, cryptography experts warn that even if the state’s evidence proves thin, the public relations damage has handed Durov an absolute golden ticket in the global battle for messaging supremacy.
