Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has recently taken to Twitter to express his dissatisfaction with Threads, an alternative Twitter platform. Musk accuses Threads of stealing trade secrets from Twitter and threatens to sue the company.
Musk's tweet reads, “Competition is fine but cheating is not. Will be watching closely,” as he tags the Twitter accounts of Twitter, Threads, and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
Threads, developed by Meta, a software company for various industries, launched in January and has gained attention from notable users like John Mayer.
While Zuckerberg has yet to respond publicly, Twitter's in-house lawyer, Alex Spiro, has sent a letter to Zuckerberg, claiming that Meta has hired former Twitter employees who have access to confidential information that could aid in developing a competitive social media platform.
Spiro's letter states, “We note that several former Twitter employees now employed by Meta are in a position to use Twitter’s confidential information and trade secrets to build a competitive product.” He also highlights Twitter's extensive patent portfolio, emphasizing that Meta's actions could endanger this valuable intellectual property.
However, Meta denies these allegations. Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, asserts that Threads was created by a team of talented engineers and designers, none of whom are former Twitter employees. Stone adds that Twitter has not provided any specific examples to support their claim and expresses willingness to cooperate with Twitter to address their concerns.
Musk continues to comment on the situation, expressing his disapproval of monopolies in social media and Threads' data collection practices. He also criticizes the algorithm-only system of Threads while acknowledging the flaws in Twitter's own algorithm.
Although Threads shares similarities with Twitter in terms of user interface, this alone does not substantiate a claim of trade secret theft. If Meta's claim of not hiring any former Twitter employees holds true, it weakens Twitter's potential lawsuit.
Musk's reaction can be interpreted as a reaction to the success of a platform that rivals his own failed empire. This parallels Donald Trump's response to the rise of Twitter as a competitor in the social networking space.
The situation between Musk, Meta, and Twitter has gained significant attention and has become a trending topic. Here are some of the best jokes circulating about the incident:
