Twitter has accused Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, of misappropriating their trade secrets in the development of Meta’s new Threads app. In response, Meta has denied these claims.
The allegations were made in a letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, sent by Alex Spiro, Elon Musk’s lawyer. Spiro expressed Twitter’s concerns over Meta’s alleged “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation” of Twitter’s trade secrets and intellectual property.
Spiro pointed out that Meta has hired numerous former Twitter employees over the past year, individuals who had access to Twitter’s trade secrets and highly confidential information.
However, Meta has refuted these claims, stating that they do not have any former Twitter engineers working on the Threads project. Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, emphasized this by saying, “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee—that’s just not a thing.”
This recent exchange only adds fuel to the fire in the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg had expressed interest in a cage fight with Musk. In response to reports of the letter, Musk tweeted, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
Despite the controversy, Meta launched Threads on Wednesday and already boasts 30 million users. Brands and celebrities have been actively posting on the app since its launch.