Elon Musk Backed Signal To Take On Mark Zuckerberg's WhatsApp, But Another Rival Says It's Spreading Like A 'Forest Fire': 'We're Sort Of A Threat'

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has donated to and promoted secure messaging app Signal to take on Mark Zuckerberg's WhatsApp, but it's another rival that is closing the gap with the Meta Platforms Inc.-owned service.

What Happened: Telegram Messenger creator Pavel Durov revealed that his messaging app has nearly a billion users and is spreading like a "forest fire."

Speaking to conservative media personality Tucker Carlson, Durov revealed that Telegram is adding users at a breakneck speed of 2.5 million per day.

"Telegram is spreading like forest fire. Two and a half million users sign up every day, and we're sort of a threat."

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Durov brought this up when Carlson told him that he had heard people claim that "Telegram is a part of the Russian government."

"People who have very limited knowledge of where Telegram came from… they would make these claims. They could be encouraged by our competitors, who see it as an easy way to discredit us," Durov said, stopping short of naming these rivals.

"I'm not surprised there's this sort of perception."

He went on to say that his competitors spend "tens of billions on marketing" and that they're "known for using public relations (PR) firms to engage in campaigns" like these.

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Musk's Calls To Use Signal Run Out Of Steam

While Telegram is now one of the major messaging services globally with nearly a billion users, Musk-backed Signal has not picked up pace yet.

This is despite Musk endorsing Signal on X, formerly Twitter. While this led to a surge in Signal users at the time, it has not taken off in quite the same way as Telegram.

Use Signal

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2021

Musk has even donated to Signal and said he'll "donate more."

Already donated to Signal a year ago. Will donate more.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 11, 2021

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Photo by Dimitri Karastelev on Unsplash