Retired lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, who made headlines as a key witness in the impeachment trial against former President Donald Trump, issued a warning to Elon Musk on Sunday after the CEO of messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France.

Durov was arrested on an arrest warrant in Paris on Saturday night following a preliminary police investigation into his alleged failure to sufficiently limit criminal activity on Telegram, according to TF1 TV and BFM TV.

As pundits and industry leaders sounded the alarm about the international free-speech implications of his arrest, Vindman echoed that sentiment, writing to X to warn its CEO of a "growing appetite for accountability" before suggesting that Musk could be next.

"While Durov has French citizenship, he has been arrested for violating French law, this has wider implications for other social media, including Twitter," Vindman wrote. "There is a growing intolerance for platform misinformation and malicious influence and a growing appetite for accountability. Musk should be nervous."

Musk criticized Durov's arrest in multiple posts on X over the weekend and shared the hashtag #FreePavel on social media.

"Dangerous times," Musk wrote in a tweet referring to government-imposed censorship.

Telegram, which has over 900 million users, is a messaging app that is comparable to WhatsApp, but according to The New York Times, it also allows large groups of people to communicate across different channels.

The New York Times also reported that the app was on "the radar of law enforcement agencies around the world because terrorist organizations, drug traffickers, arms dealers and far-right extremist groups have used it for communication, recruitment and organizing."

Prominent politicians and industry leaders rallied behind Durov, accusing the French government of violating free speech by arresting him.

"The need to protect free speech has never been more urgent," RFK Jr. wrote. in X.

Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski commented, "France has threatened Rumble, and now they've crossed the red line by arresting Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, allegedly for not censoring speech," he wrote.

Ian Miles Cheong, a conservative commentator, argued that the arrest was part of a 'witch hunt'.

"This is about silencing dissent and controlling information. They want to turn the internet into another arm of their propaganda machine. We are watching freedom of speech being attacked before our eyes," he wrote./Fox News