Twitter threatens to sue Meta over Threads for alleged trade secret theft
Twitter has sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, accusing the company of stealing trade secrets through former Twitter employees in their newly launched Threads app, prompting a potential legal battle.
Meta’s new app ‘Threads’, a potential competitor to Twitter, has found itself in hot water as Twitter threatens to sue. Twitter sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, accusing the company of stealing trade secrets by hiring former Twitter employees, as reported by CNN.
The letter, written by Alex Spiro, an outside lawyer for Twitter owner Elon Musk, claims that Meta engaged in “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.” Spiro emphasised that Twitter intends to rigorously protect its intellectual property rights and demands that Meta immediately cease using any Twitter trade secrets or highly confidential information.
Elon Musk, in response to the successful launch of the Threads application, tweeted, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.” The new app has enjoyed a tremendously successful launch, with Zuckerberg revealing that over ten million users signed up within the first seven hours, surpassing the launch of other popular platforms.
Spiro also mentioned the possibility of seeking civil remedies and highlighted that the letter serves as a formal notice for Meta to preserve relevant documents in anticipation of a potential dispute between the two companies.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded, disputing the claim that any former Twitter employees were part of the Threads engineering team. Stone stated, “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”
Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino has not publicly commented on the letter but seemed to indirectly address Threads’ launch in a Thursday tweet, stating, “We’re often imitated — but the Twitter community can never be duplicated.”
Insider Intelligence principal analyst Jasmine Enberg described the situation as a “cage match” and commended Meta for its execution and user-friendly interface. Analysts speculate that Threads could pose a major challenge to Twitter based on the excitement surrounding its launch and impressive download numbers thus far.
Threads arrives at a time when many users might be seeking alternatives to Twitter to escape Elon Musk’s boisterous influence on the platform since his acquisition of it for $44 billion last year.
