An iPhone contact mix-up has landed a prominent U.S. journalist inside a top-secret group chat discussing military strikes in Yemen, with Apple’s algorithm copping the blame.

Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, reportedly added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, to a Signal group named “Houthi PC small group”, where senior officials were coordinating responses to Houthi rebel activity.

Signal is an encrypted messaging app popular with both government insiders and journalists for its privacy and security.

According to The Guardian, the confusion stems from a months-old iPhone slip-up.

During Trump’s 2024 campaign, Waltz received a forwarded message that included Goldberg’s contact details in a signature block. Thanks to a quirky iPhone feature called “contact suggestion update” – which links unknown numbers with existing contacts if the algorithm thinks they’re connected – Goldberg’s number was saved under the name of Brian Hughes, who is now the National Security Council’s spokesperson.

So when Waltz tried to add Hughes to the secure group in March, it was Goldberg’s number that got the invite – inadvertently bringing a member of the media into classified military conversations.

This led to a full-blown White House investigation, a forensic phone review, and even a brief moment where Trump reportedly considered firing Waltz – more for having The Atlantic editor’s number than for the actual breach.

Trump ultimately stuck by his adviser, though sources say he was more concerned about handing the media a political win than national security fallout. He has since defended Waltz publicly, while the internal review confirmed the incident was an accident – a very modern one, powered by smartphone AI gone rogue.

Waltz himself insists he never knowingly contacted Goldberg and described the phone number as having been “sucked” into his contacts, a reference to how the iPhone misfiled the journalist’s info.

For his part, Goldberg declined to spill the beans, telling reporters only that he does, in fact, know Waltz and has spoken to him in the past – raising more questions than it answers.

The scandal has sparked a debate in Washington about where to use consumer messaging apps for national security.