Meta to expand encryption on Messenger making it similar to WhatsApp
Thilina Kaluthotage | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Meta said Wednesday evening that the personal calls and chats of every Messenger user will be encrypted by default, representing a major privacy update that makes the service more similar to its sibling WhatsApp.
Because of the encryption technology “nobody, including Meta, can see what’s sent or said, unless you choose to report a message to us,” Loredana Crisan, the head of Messenger, wrote in an accompanying blog post.
Crisan said that it will take an unspecified amount of time for Meta to encrypt all Messenger chats, and that the company relied on several “cryptographic principles” to inform its strategy, including one developed in-house and another that’s utilized by the popular Signal encrypted messaging app.
Since 2016, Messenger users could choose, or opt-in, to safeguarding their chats via a process referred to as end-to-end encryption, which scrambles peoples’ communications so that third-parties can’t eavesdrop and access the data. Although Meta’s other messaging app, WhatsApp, also utilizes end-to-end encryption, privacy advocates have generally considered Signal to be a more secure communication service because it collects less user data.
“After years of work rebuilding Messenger, we’ve updated the app with default end-to-end encryption for all personal calls and messages,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. “Huge congrats to the team on making this happen.”
In 2019, Zuckerberg said the social networking company would bring encryption technology to all private communications in its family of apps, underscoring a major privacy push that the executive attributed to changing consumer habits in which people “want to connect privately in the digital equivalent of the living room.”
“I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever,” Zuckerberg said at the time.
Zuckerberg detailed his more privacy centric vision for Facebook following a string of data-privacy blunders, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal which damaged the company’s reputation.
Over the years, Meta debuted more privacy related updates, including letting some Instagram users in a few countries opt-in to having their direct messages encrypted via a test in 2021.
In 2022, Meta conducted a test on Messenger that let users back up their end-to-end encrypted conversations in case they needed to access them on another device. Although the test came shortly after the social networking company provided Messenger chat histories to Nebraska law enforcement investigating an alleged illegal abortion in the state, a Meta spokesperson said at the time that they were unrelated.
Meta’s latest encryption announcement will likely add to an ongoing debate involving privacy and the ability of law enforcement to conduct investigations, as exemplified in 2016 when the Federal Bureau of Investigation wanted Apple to develop software to help then unlock the iPhone of suspects that were part of a major shooting in San Bernardino, California. Apple refused to comply, saying at the time “The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe.”
More recently, leaders at WhatsApp and Signal said their services would no longer be available in the United Kingdom if the lawmakers enacted laws that would weaken encryption. The U.K. government claimed that Meta’s encryption push would make it more difficult to detect online child abuse activities.
Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.
Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.
As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.
“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”
The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup.
Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.
“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.
Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.
This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.
Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.
The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.
Technology
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.
Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.
Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.
The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.
Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.
The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.
On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.
Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.
Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.
WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports
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