Meta has issued a response to Elon Musk’s lawsuit threat against their new platform Threads, stating that none of the app’s staff members have any former affiliation with Twitter.
After Meta’s text-based platform, Threads, was launched in collaboration with Instagram, it quickly gained massive popularity with tens of millions of signups, making it the fastest downloaded app ever and the most popular alternative to Twitter.
However, just hours after its release, Twitter’s attorney, Alex Spiro, sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alleging that the company had unlawfully copied Twitter’s platform by hiring former Twitter employees.
The letter, as reported by Semafor, claimed that Meta engaged in the “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”
READ MORE: Crypto Exchange Launches Public Testnet for v4, Paving the Way for Full Decentralization
Spiro’s letter demanded that Meta immediately cease using any of Twitter’s trade secrets or confidential information and warned of potential legal action.
He emphasized Twitter’s intention to protect its intellectual property rights and mentioned the possibility of seeking civil remedies and injunctive relief.
According to Spiro, Meta hired multiple former Twitter employees who allegedly had access to Twitter’s trade secrets and confidential information.
He argued that Meta’s Threads app was developed with the explicit intention of utilizing Twitter’s intellectual property to expedite the development of Meta’s competing platform.
Spiro claimed that this action violated both state and federal laws, as well as the ongoing obligations of the employees to Twitter.
In response to these allegations, Meta’s communications director, Andy Stone, addressed the claims by stating that the Threads engineering team does not include any former Twitter employees.
He explicitly clarified on the Threads platform, “To be clear: No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee – that’s just not a thing.”
Elon Musk, upon hearing about Twitter’s threat of legal action against Meta, responded by stating, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
As the situation unfolds, it remains to be seen how Meta and Twitter will resolve this dispute. Both companies are prominent players in the social media landscape, and the outcome of this conflict could have significant implications for the industry.
