Twitter has reportedly issued a threat to sue Meta, the parent company of Facebook, over its newly launched Threads platform.
Twitter’s legal representative, Alex Spiro, sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressing the company’s intent to protect its intellectual property rights.
The letter, as cited by news site Semafor, highlights Twitter’s demand for Meta to immediately cease using any trade secrets or highly confidential information belonging to Twitter.
Alex Spiro’s letter stated, “It demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information.”
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The news of Twitter’s legal action prompted a response from Twitter owner Elon Musk, who took to his own platform to share his thoughts. Musk posted, “Competition is fine, cheating is not,” in apparent reference to the allegations against Meta.
Meta launched its Threads platform late Wednesday, which has been positioned by experts as a direct competitor to Twitter.
Meta, known for its ownership of popular social media platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp, claimed to have garnered an impressive 30 million sign-ups to Threads within a day of its launch.
Since Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter for a staggering $44 billion in October last year, the platform has undergone significant changes.
Musk took swift action, reducing the company’s workforce by 50%. He also replaced the previous verification system, which relied on notability, with his own paid-for service called Twitter Blue.
According to Semafor’s report, Alex Spiro’s letter accuses Meta of hiring former Twitter employees who allegedly possess and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and highly confidential information.
Meta’s spokesperson, Andy Stone, addressed the allegations in a post on the Threads platform, vehemently denying the claims made by Twitter.
“To be clear: ‘No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee—that’s just not a thing’,” stated Andy Stone in response to the accusations.
