Twitter threatens to sue Meta; claims Threads is a Facebook, Instagram âcopycatâ

Twitter has issued a legal threat against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, regarding its new text-based platform called Threads.

According to a letter obtained by the global news platform Semafor, Twitter is accusing Meta of illegally recruiting their former employees to develop a similar app which they call a “copycat” version of Twitter.

The letter, sent by Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alleges “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”

Spiro also expressed Twitter’s intent to protect its intellectual property rights, and demanded that Meta immediately cease the use of any Twitter trade secrets or confidential information.

“Twitter reserves … the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta,” the letter continued.

According to Spiro, Meta has hired numerous former Twitter employees who had access to Twitter’s trade secrets and confidential information. These employees were allegedly assigned to develop Meta’s Threads app with the explicit intention of using those secrets and intellectual property.

In response to Twitter’s accusations, a source from Meta informed Semafor that the claims made by Twitter are unfounded.

“No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,” the source stated.

This latest development comes after Zuckerberg announced Thursday morning that the Threads app already has 30 million users after launching the night prior.

It also follows last month’s online repartee in which the tech billionaires traded blows on social media, discussing fighting each other in real-life a cage match.

Zuckerberg tweeted on Thursday — for the first time in 11 years — an image that appears to be mocking the similarity between Threads and Twitter.

While Elon Musk has thus far been silent about Threads, new Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino seemed to take shot at the challenger app in her own tweet Thursday morning.

“We’re often imitated — but the Twitter community can never be duplicated,” she wrote.