Twitter threatens to sue Meta following Threads launch

Twitter is threatening Meta with a lawsuit, as an attorney representing the company sent Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter accusing his company of trade secret theft on Wednesday, following the launch of Meta’s Threads.

“Meta is guilty of systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property. Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights,” said Alex Spiro, Twitter’s attorney, in the letter sent to Zuckerberg.

Spiro said that Meta hired former Twitter employees, who improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices, and that Meta deliberately involved these employees in developing Threads.

“Twitter demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” Spiro stated in the letter.

Meta’s copycat Threads was built with the specific intent to use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app, and this is in violation of both state and federal law, Spiro added.

“Competition is fine, cheating is not,” said Twitter’s owner, Elon Musk, in response to reports of Twitter suing Meta.

Meta has responded to Twitter’s accusations, denying that former Twitter employees were involved in developing Threads.

“To be clear: No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee – that’s just not a thing,” said Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director on Threads.

Threads is not the only Twitter rival, with similar social media platforms gaining more traction, like Mastodon and Bluesky, but Threads is the most rapidly growing among them, with 30 million user sign-ups in its first day.

Competition is fine, cheating is not

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2023