Alex Spiro, lawyer for Twitter and Elon Musk, claims that the former Facebook company exploited proprietary information to create its new Threads app.
Twitter lawyer, Alex Spiro, also known as the personal lawyer of Elon Musk, owner of the social network, has made serious allegations against Meta (formerly known as Facebook). In a letter sent to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta and head of the new social network Threads, Spiro said that the company used trade secrets and intellectual property of Twitter to create its new application.
The letter alleges that several former Twitter employees, now employed by Meta, may have retained access to the social networking platform’s confidential information and trade secrets. According to Spiro, Meta would have capitalized on this information, using it for the development of Threads, an app that Twitter deems “imitative and contrary to the law” .
Faced with these allegations, the lawyer threatened to take legal action against Meta, including “civil remedies and injunctive relief” . Spiro also asked Meta to immediately stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information. He also highlighted that Meta should not track or analyze Twitter data.
In response to these claims, Meta denied the allegations in a post published on Threads. Andy Stone, director of communications at Meta, argued that “none of the Threads engineering team is a former employee of Twitter” , thus refuting the allegations of the lawyer.
Elon Musk, in response to Stone, expressed his disappointment on Twitter: “Competition is good, cheating is not ,” said the owner of the blue bird’s social network.
At the heart of the Threads controversy, which Meta launched on Wednesday night (July 5) , is that the new social network is garnering huge attention from celebrities and brands. The app has been tremendously successful, reaching over 10 million registered users within just seven hours of launch.
The escalation of tensions between Twitter and Meta marks a new chapter in the dynamic world of social media, where the fight for innovation collides with the sensitive issues of intellectual property and trade secrets. The outcome of these allegations could have major repercussions, not just for the two companies directly involved, but for the entire social media industry.
