Twitter has threatened Meta with a lawsuit following the spectacular launch of Threads, Meta’s new Twitter competitor. This move is perhaps the most obvious proof yet that Twitter regards the program as an imminent competitor.
On Wednesday, an attorney for Twitter filed a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg accusing the firm of stealing trade secrets by employing former Twitter employees. Semafor was the first to report on the letter. A source close to the situation verified the letter’s veracity to .
The letter, sent by Alex Spiro, an outside lawyer for Twitter founder Elon Musk, accused Meta of “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”
Musk responded to the letter reports by tweeting, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
According to the letter, Meta recruited former Twitter staff members who “improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices,” and Meta “deliberately” involved these individuals in the development of Threads.
“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights,” Spiro added, “and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information.”
Andy Stone, a Meta spokeswoman, categorically ignored the letter. “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter staffer — that’s just not a thing,” he said on the platform.
In the months since Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter, the social network has faced competition from a rising number of smaller microblogging services, including the decentralized social network Mastodon and Bluesky, an alternative funded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. However, neither Twitter nor Facebook has threatened legal action.
Compared to some of Twitter’s competitors, Threads has grown rapidly, with Zuckerberg reporting 30 million user sign-ups on the app’s first day. Threads was the number one free app on the iOS App Store as of Thursday afternoon.
According to Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, the legal threat might not end up in litigation, but it could be part of an effort to slow down Meta.
“At times, lawyers threaten but do not follow through. Or they want to see how far they can get. That could be the case, but I’m not sure,” Tobias said. “There may be some value in tying it up in litigation and complicating Meta’s life,” he continued.
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