The battle between two billionaires won't only be fought in the ring, but also in legal courts. Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over Threads, what they are referring to as "a copycat app". In the letter sent by lawyer Alex Spiro, they accuse Meta of allegedly developing Threads with the help of several former employees of the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.
In the letter, Spiro (of law firm Quinn Emanuel) also adds that Threads is taking advantage of "the company's trade secrets". Meta has yet to respond officially to the letter, but director Andy Stone has addressed the letter in a post on Threads, denying that the engineering team actually features former Twitter employees.
The lawyer for Twitter also described how the company was able to build Threads in a relatively short time, specifically because Meta had access to the experience and knowledge of former Twitter employees.
Twitter's owner Elon Musk also took aim at the new Mark Zuckerberg-owned social media platform, tweeting that "competition is fine, cheating is not."
Threads has been launched by Meta last Wednesday and, even though there have been several critics because of its overall lack of features, there have been almost 30 million signups to the new platform.
While Threads does look fairly similar to Twitter in its overall look and features, its engine is based on Instagram. The platform makes use of the user's Instagram followers, allowing one to interact with them more directly.
"Our vision is to take the best parts of Instagram and create a new experience for text, ideas and discussing what's on your mind", said Mark Zuckerberg presenting Threads to the world.
Remains to be seen what will happen when Meta responds to the letter, but so far one thing is certain. Like most good ol' boxing fights, the first round is already being fought in the real world before the contestants enter the ring. Who, among the world's weirdest billionaires, will be able to go the distance? Don't Thread on me bro, indeed.