Elon’s lawyer Alex Spiro sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg threatening legal action after the global launch of Threads. The letter alleges that Meta has engaged in the recruitment of ex-Twitter employees with the intention of developing a replica platform, thereby raising the specter of legal action.
“Based on recent reports regarding your recently launched “Threads” app, Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms (“Meta”) has engaged in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property,” read an excerpt from the letter.
It went on to say how over the past year, Meta has hired dozens of former Twitter employees and that Twitter knows that these employees previously worked at Twitter; that these employees had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information; that these employees owe ongoing obligations to Twitter; and that many of these employees have improperly retained Twitter documents and electronic devices.
“With that knowledge, Meta deliberately assigned these employees to develop, in a matter of months, Meta’s copycat “Threads” app with the specific intent that they use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property in order to accelerate the development of Meta’s competing app, in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter,” the letter said.
Twitter, as per the letter, intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demanded that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information.
Owner Elon Musk also took to Twitter and put out a tweet saying “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
Competition is fine, cheating is not
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2023