Elon Musk launches X Chat, his alternative to WhatsApp and Telegram

Elon Musk’s company has begun testing a new messaging app called X Chat. The beta version is now available to iOS users through the TestFlight platform.

The initial quota of 1,000 testers was filled within two hours. The testing program was quickly expanded to 5,000 users. xAI product designer Michael Boswell said the team had been working on the app for several months and now needs feedback from real users.

“For the past few months, we’ve been quietly building a standalone X Chat app for iOS. Today we’re opening it to the first 1,000 users on TestFlight. Use it. Break it. We want your feedback,” Boswell wrote on X.

The new encrypted messaging service mirrors the direct messaging features of the X platform, which received major updates in November. The app supports encrypted chats, media sharing, password protection for conversations, message editing, and automatic deletion of messages on a timer.

Security remains a central theme of the product’s positioning. In an October appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Musk said the service uses a peer-to-peer encryption system inspired by Bitcoin and described it as more secure than traditional messaging platforms. At the same time, Musk has repeatedly criticized competing services, questioning the reliability of WhatsApp and raising doubts about the security of Signal. Those remarks prompted a response from WhatsApp head Will Cathcart, who called the criticism an attempt to draw attention to Musk’s own product through unfounded claims.

According to information from Grok, the AI developed by xAI, an Android version of X Chat is also in development and is expected to launch in the near future.