Elon Musk’s team working to dismantle the federal bureaucracy and the protesters hoping to stop him have something in common.
They use Signal to keep their communications secure.
Signal, a text-and-voice app that is a little over a decade old, is seen as the gold standard for end-to-end encrypted communications, according to mobile security experts.
It has been widely adopted – not just by privacy-conscious dissidents but by officials, lawmakers, generals, and corporate leaders as well.
Even before the app became a national talking point when senior Trump officials inadvertently added a reporter to their sensitive discussions about impending airstrikes on Yemen, Signal was taking the capital by storm.
Data from Sensor Tower, an analytics firm, shows that US app downloads of Signal in the first three months of 2025 are up 16 per cent compared to the prior quarter and 25 per cent compared to the same period in 2024.
In Washington, it is hard to find a congressional aide or political appointee who does not use the app, which is run by the nonprofit Signal Foundation.
The words, “Let’s take this to Signal,” are the universal indication that the conversation is about to get interesting. A recent review by the Associated Press found more than 1,100 government officials across all 50 states on Signal.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is coordinating its government-cutting work over Signal, according to reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Musk himself used the app during his 2022 purchase of the social media site Twitter and recently used the platform to talk to one of the mothers of his children, right-wing social media personality Ashley St Clair.
