Twitter owner, Elon Musk has accused Meta of hiring some Twitter ex-employers to steal its trade secrets, which culminated in the launch of a Twitter-like app, Threads.
Confirming a viral letter in which Twitter is threatening to sue Meta and Mark Zuckerberg over the launch of Threads, Musk said what Meta had done was not a competition but cheating. In the letter addressed to Zuckerberg, Twitter claimed that Meta had over the past year hired dozens of former Twitter employees employees who had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.
Twitter said Meta’s act violates both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter. The company added it would strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information.
The letter
In the letter addressed to Meta founder, Zuckerberg, Twitter’s legal representative, Alex Spiro, wrote:
- “I write on behalf of X Corp., as successor in interest to Twitter, Inc. (Twitter). 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.
- “Over the past year, Meta has hired dozens of former Twitter employees. 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.
- “Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information. Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, 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.”
Twitter said Meta is expressly prohibited from engaging in any crawling or scraping of Twitter’s followers or following data.
- “Please consider this letter a formal notice that Meta must preserve any documents that could be relevant to a dispute between Twitter, Meta, and/or former Twitter employees who now work for that includes but is not limited to, all documents related to the recruitment, hiring, and onboarding of these former Twitter employees, the development of Meta’s competing Threads app, and any communications between these former Twitter employees and any agent, representative, or employee or Meta,” it added.
Meta on Thursday launched Threads to compete with Twitter. According to Zuckerberg, Threads is an open and friendly public space for conversation which takes “the best parts of Instagram and create a new experience for texts, ideas and discussing what’s on your mind”. Zuckerberg said the new app c become better than Twitter as he looks to take advantage of some lapses from Twitter.
I am seriously pissed by this news because Elon Musk is a billionaire CEO. If billions of people agree that you are smart then check, I guess there’s no doubt there. Lets cut the shit, you knew that dozens of your ex-employees with TRADE SECRETS are being employed by Meta, your rival, and you didn’t think ‘oh, WTF is going on?’ I mean you got billions my friend and this area of technology is your field, word must have gotten to you somehow that Facebook was planning something big to rival twitter, this stuff does not take one day to build. I mean, if you got ambushed by the launch of this thread, you might as well give all that billions to Pius. This..letter written by your lawyer and then the official launch of Thread and just the general lack of concrete evidence or a name mentioned of any ex-employee, including dead ones, that released any trade secrets, shows that you were ambushed. If you had done your due diligence my friend, you would have pushed this competition back another 10+ years. This new CEO you hired needs to be fired and you know it, we both know that you need a CEO that can handle the very drastic new change that has happened. She is pre-competition, you are now in post-competition with your ‘lack of evidence’ approach, heck! She might even say that this was not what she signed up for & run for the door. Good luck.