Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over concerns about its new Threads app, according to a letter obtained by Semafor. In the letter, which is addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro argues that Meta used Twitterâs trade secrets and intellectual property to build Threads.
Spiro, who is also Elon Muskâs personal lawyer and a partner at the Quinn Emanuel law firm, claims that Meta hired âdozensâ of ex-Twitter employees to develop Threads, which wouldnât be all that surprising given just how many people were fired following Muskâs takeover.
But according to Twitter, many of these former workers still have access to Twitterâs trade secrets and other confidential information. Twitter alleges that Meta took advantage of this and tasked these employees with developing a âcopycatâ app âin violation of both state and federal law.â
As a result, Twitter is threatening legal action in the form of âboth civil remedies and injunctive relief.â It also âdemands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential informationâ and says Meta isnât allowed to crawl or scrape Twitterâs data, either.
Meta responded to Twitterâs letter in a post on Threads, with communications director Andy Stone stating, âNo one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee â thatâs just not a thing.â Meta doesnât seem all too concerned about this, and that may be because Twitter isnât all that shy about threatening legal action. In May, Twitter accused Microsoft of abusing the companyâs API through integrations with some of its products.
Meta launched Threads on Wednesday night, with celebrities and brands the first to get on board. Less than 24 hours since the appâs launch, Threads has garnered over 30 million registered users, while internal data obtained by The Vergeâs Alex Heath indicates that users have already made over 95 million threads.
âCompetition is fine, cheating is not,â Musk said in a reply to a post about the letter on Twitter.
Both Musk and Zuckerberg are horrible people, but while Zuck looks like the dangerous person, that has no regards for anything besides his own money and itâs actually competent in doing his shady stuff, Musk seems like the petty dude that keeps talking shit and itâs extremely incompetent, turning everything he touches into shit, but not because of some big plan, but because he itâs way over his head.
Not saying he is not smart, but managing doesnât seem like his deal.
Zuck strikes me as lawful evil. What you see is what you get, and he will comply with the law and all agreements to their fullest extent and make as much money as possible within that framework. Stability is good because itâs good for profits. Equality and equity are good because they make you money; as a corollary, bigotry is bad because it loses you money. Sustainability is good because the public loves it so you make more money. Zuck will flip on a dime if it makes him more money and nothing is personal, just business.
Musk is chaotic evil. It isnât enough that heâs the richest man on earth because he was born with an emerald spoon on his mouth, he wants more. He wants to be adored and loved and respected. And he will punish anyone who questions or stands in the way of that. He spreads bigotry and hate, promotes conspiracy theories and shitty politicians, and demeans the average working person and gaslights them. He will have his kingdom and everyone will know it and praise it, even if itâs smoldering ashes.
It also goes along with their relative intelligences. Musk doesnât know shit and the businesses that heâs bought succeed in spite of himself. Heâll chase short term gains and figure out how to handle the consequences later. Zuck provided some technical basis for his product and managed it maliciously, but managed it well. He plays the long game, and he picks whatâll make him the most money overall.
None of this is meant to praise nor extol either of them. Thereâs a funny comic panel where the Joker realizes someone heâs been working with isnât just cosplaying, but is an actual Nazi. Heâs disgusted and has an âeven evil has standardsâ moment. So thatâs who youâve got on comparison here â the Joker who draws the line at Nazis, or Nazis.
The difference is that Zuck built Facebook either from taking an original idea and expanding on it or writing the code himself, he actually knows what heâs talking about. Elon is Trump putting his name on everything and calling it his while half-assing physics texts and claiming expertise.