As it turns out, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s fight may take place in a courtroom rather than a ring. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, received a letter from a lawyer for Twitter threatening legal action hours after the business unveiled Threads, a rival social networking platform to Twitter.
The two-page letter, which Semafor got access to, accuses Meta of hiring former Twitter employees in order to obtain “trade secrets” and “highly confidential information” for developing what Twitter refers to as “copycat” software.
According to Mashable, the opening statement of the letter written by Twitter attorney Alex Spiro states, “Twitter has substantial concerns that Meta Platforms has engaged in systematic, deliberate, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”
Twitter continues by claiming that the individuals hired by Meta “improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices” while employed there. Additionally, the letter bars Meta from scraping Twitter data, including user follower data.
In response to a tweet about the letter, Elon Musk commented that competition is fine, but not cheating. However, some people immediately cited Musk’s remark from November, which came in the wake of a round of Twitter layoffs. Musk apologised for his firings via a tweet and expressed that their “talent” will be of “great use elsewhere.”
The letter further reiterates that Twitter plans to enforce its intellectual property rights quite seriously and has asked Meta to take “immediate steps” to stop using “Twitter’s trade secrets or other highly confidential information.” The statement further makes it clear that Twitter holds the “right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta.”
Threads was made available to the world just yesterday. The new app took the internet by storm but also received criticism for its “supplemental policy,” which does not allow any user to delete Threads. Deleting Threads would result in the deletion of the linked Instagram profile. However, the user can deactivate their Threads account at any point in time. This will not impact Instagram.
Also Read: Meta Threads sign-up comes with big catch; deleting account will terminate your Instagram
Meanwhile, Jack Dorsey also took to Twitter to put direct shade on Meta’s Threads. He retweeted Andy Allen’s tweet that pointed out that an opportunity to “reinvent social” has been missed. He shared some screenshots of various apps, including Threads, which looks similar to Twitter. Dorsey added his comment to this, stating that “we wanted flying cars, instead we got 7 Twitter clones.”
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