Why is Twitter suing Threads? Elon Musk issues warning to Mark Zuckerberg over Instagram sensation

American technology company Meta is facing a lawsuit from rival social media platform Twitter over concerns about his new app, Threads. On July 5, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched the text-based app, which is deemed as "Twitter's rival." However, hours after the social media handle got launched, Zuckerberg received a letter addressed to him by Twitter's lawyer threatening legal action.

According to the letter obtained by the news outlet Semafor, Twitter's legal rep Alex Spiro argued that Meta hired former Twitter employees to create the "copycat" app and accused the company of extracting its intellectual property and "trade secrets."

As per Mashable, the two-page letter sent by Spiro read:

"Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms has engaged in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property."

The social media platform further alleged that the ex-Twitter employees hired by Zuckerberg's company "improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices" while working for him. The letter also reads that Twitter plans to "strictly enforce" its IP rights and that it was a "formal notice" to Meta to prepare themselves for a possible legal battle.

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Meta denies hiring former Twitter employees for creating Threads

While addressing the accusations that they had hired former Twitter employees at Meta to create Threads, a spokesperson for Zuckerberg's company responded:

"No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that's just not a thing."

Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter as its CEO, the social media platform has seen several changes and has been struggling to hold onto its users. Most recently, Musk garnered immense backlash for launching a new policy on the platform where users will only see a set limit of posts depending on the verification status of their profiles.

On July 1, he announced that as per the new rules, verified accounts can only read 6,000 posts every day. On the other hand, unverified accounts can read up to 600 posts and unverified new accounts can only read 300 per day.

The move made several people flock to other Twitter alternatives like Bluesky and Mastodon.

On Threads, a new user would require to have a preexisting Instagram account for signing up or logging in. Threads will also allow users to share text-based posts of up to 500 characters along with several multimedia options to enhance it, similar to Twitter.

This is not the first time that Twitter has accused another company of them. In May 2023, Musk's company slammed Microsoft for misusing the company's API via some integrations with some products.

As per The Verge, Threads garnered more than 30 million registered users within 24 hours of its launch and is continuing to do so.