Twitter is considering legal action against Facebook (now known as Meta) over Threads, its recently launched Twitter clone. Elon Musk said in a tweet that, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
CBS News reports that just one day after its official launch, Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter clone Threads is facing a potential legal battle — from Elon Musk, who normally flaunts the legal system. Twitter’s legal team has described Threads as a “copycat” app, alleging that it was developed by employing former Twitter employees and exploiting the company’s trade secrets.
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg in the ring (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty, Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency via Getty, Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty)
Threads, which launched this week, has already gained significant traction, with 30 million new users signing up within hours of its debut. The platform bears a striking resemblance to Twitter, allowing users to like or repost messages. However, it also integrates with Instagram, enabling users to follow their existing Instagram userbase.
“No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,” said Andy Stone, Facebook’s communications director, in response to the allegations. Despite this, Twitter’s legal team remains adamant, stating that Facebook hired “dozens of former Twitter employees” who had access to Musk’s “trade secrets and other highly confidential information.”
. @semafor exclusive: Elon’s lawyer Alex Spiro sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg threatening legal action, claiming that Meta hired former Twitter employees to create a clone https://t.co/Kqq1bwWgGw
— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) July 6, 2023
Elon Musk has also weighed in on the controversy. “Competition is fine, cheating is not,” Musk tweeted, expressing his disapproval of Meta’s new platform. This comes at a time when Musk’s own leadership at Twitter is under scrutiny, with users expressing dissatisfaction over recent changes, including a limit on the number of tweets users can view per day and conservatives believing that censorship is increasing back towards pre-Musk levels.
Competition is fine, cheating is not
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2023
Twitter’s attorney, Alex Spiro, has stated that Threads was built within months by leveraging the knowledge of ex-Twitter workers. “Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms has engaged in systemic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property,” Spiro wrote. He further added that Twitter plans to “strictly enforce its intellectual property rights.”
It should be noted that Musk unceremoniously fired a huge amount of Twitter employees during his time at the company, accusing them of doing very little work. Now he appears to be worried that after not working at Twitter, they went to Facebook where they built a major competitor to their former employer.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan