Twitter upgrades DM replies, Musk claims encrypted DMs launch on Wednesday

Twitter is making some big changes to direct messages and expects to introduce encrypted DMs on Wednesday, according to Tuesday evening tweets from the company and owner Elon Musk.

Perhaps the bigger change is encrypted DMs, which Musk said was a priority for Twitter in a meeting with employees in November. Musk says the version 1.0 release of the feature “should happen” on Wednesday, and he promises that it will “grow in sophistication” at a rapid rate. “The acid test is that I could not see your DMs even if there was a gun to my head,” he said.

That said, I won’t believe that encrypted DMs are here until they’re actually here; Musk said in February that the platform start sharing ad revenue with creators, but admitted on Tuesday that the company is still working on the software to actually do that.

In addition, Musk said that sometime “soon,” Twitter will let you do “voice and video chat from your handle to anyone on this platform.” The idea, according to Musk, is that you’ll be able to use Twitter to “talk to people anywhere in the world without giving them your phone number.” Musk had also shared this feature with employees in November.