Over the past days, two popular chat services have accused each other of having undisclosed government ties. According to Signal president Meredith Whittaker, Telegram is not only “notoriously insecure” but also “routinely cooperates with governments behind the scenes.” Telegram founder Pavel Durov, on the other hand, claims that “the US government spent $3M to build Signal’s encryption” and Signal’s current leaders are “activists used by the US state department for regime change abroad.”
That’s not true. A phone number is still required to register, you can just set it not to be public.
Source: I just tried to register and it asked for my phone number.