Elon Musk, the executive chairman of Twitter, has accused Mark Zuckerberg’s company Meta of “cheating” in the release of their new text-based social network, Threads, which resembles Twitter. Musk, while expressing that he welcomes competition, made it clear that he will not tolerate any unfair practices. This comes after Twitter’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, sent a letter to Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, threatening legal action in response to alleged violations.

In a tweet on July 6, Musk stated, “Competition is fine, cheating is not,” emphasizing his stance on fair competition.

Spiro’s letter, dated July 5, explains that Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights and demanded that Meta immediately cease using Twitter’s trade secrets. The letter alleges that Meta hired former Twitter employees who had access to confidential information, including trade secrets, and assigned them to develop the Threads application as a “copycat” of Twitter. The letter claims that Meta used Twitter’s trade secrets and intellectual property to expedite the development of their competitor app.

In addition, the letter serves as a formal notice to Meta to preserve any relevant documents related to the dispute between Twitter and Meta, as well as any former Twitter employees now working for Meta.

Spiro’s letter also states that Meta is prohibited from engaging in any crawling or scraping of Twitter’s followers or following data without prior consent from Twitter. It warns Meta against violating this prohibition for any reason.

Meta launched Threads, their new text-based social network, in 100 countries on July 5. The release of Threads followed Twitter’s recent rate limit controversy, where the social platform temporarily restricted the number of posts users could read.

Summary

Elon Musk, the executive chairman of Twitter, has accused Meta of cheating in the release of Threads, a new text-based social network resembling Twitter. Musk stated that he welcomes competition but will not tolerate any cheating. This comes after Twitter’s lawyer sent a letter to Meta demanding they cease using Twitter’s trade secrets. The letter alleges that Meta hired former Twitter employees with access to confidential information and used it to develop the Threads app. Meta launched Threads in 100 countries on July 5.

FAQs

Why did Elon Musk accuse Mark Zuckerberg of cheating?

Elon Musk accused Mark Zuckerberg’s company, Meta, of cheating in the release of Threads, a text-based social network similar to Twitter. Musk claims that Meta used Twitter’s trade secrets and intellectual property to develop their competitor app.

What did Twitter’s lawyer’s letter allege?

The letter sent by Twitter’s lawyer to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg alleged that Meta had hired former Twitter employees with access to confidential information, including trade secrets. It claimed that Meta used this information to develop the Threads app, copying Twitter’s features and accelerating the development process.

When was Threads released?

Meta released Threads, their text-based social network, in 100 countries on July 5. The release followed Twitter’s rate limit controversy, where the number of posts users could read on the platform was temporarily restricted.