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Given Elon Musk’s penchant for publicising his thoughts on Twitter (a social media platform that he now owns), many found his silence on the release of Meta’s Threads uncharacteristic.
Dubbed by industry pundits as the “Twitter killer,” Threads’ release last week was a major talking point, even becoming one of Twitter’s trending topics over the weekend.
His decidedly comical invitations to a physical bout with Meta Founder Mark Zuckerberg notwithstanding, Musk did not immediately appear to be directly perturbed. However, it appears that this time, the firebrand CEO is letting his legal team do the work.
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Hours after Meta’s official unveiling on Wednesday, X Corp’s legal counsel Alex Spiro sent a letter to Zuckerberg, demanding that Meta stop “using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information.”
X Corp is the parent company of Twitter, a wholly owned subsidiary of X Holdings Corp., itself owned by Musk.
In a letter secured by Semafor, Spiro accused Meta of hiring dozens of former Twitter employees to take advantage of trade secrets and other 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,” Spiro said.
Meta denied the allegations, claiming that while they have hired former Twitter employees, none of them are working on the Threads app.
“No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing,” said Meta communications director Andy Stone.
Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover was chaotic, to say the least. From massive layoffs and public spats with media organisations to driving away a sizeable chunk of advertisers, many predicted that Musk’s Twitter era was going to be the end. This prediction led to the emergence of several Twitter copycats-clash-competitors such as Mastodon and Blue Sky.
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So far though, these apps have not been able to garner enough steam to warrant this kind of attention. So, what makes Threads so special?
For one, Meta is a much bigger fish in the proverbial ocean, and they have a record of dunking on competitors by making a noticeably similar service.
Remember Snapchat, arguably the company that launched live filters and shortform content? They’re still around; but not with the same notoriety as they did before Zuckerberg tried and failed to acquire them in 2013.
For those too young to remember, Snapchat used to be a major competitor to Facebook, reportedly earning 10 million active users just a year after launch. Snapchat’s main claims to fame were two things: disappearing photos and fun filters.
Disappearing photos was exactly as it sounds — pieces of content that disappear without a trace after 24 hours, never to be seen again.
Snapchat became an instant hit with teenagers who wanted an alternative to Facebook, whose core audience were these teenagers’ parents. Apart from a UI that confused everyone but their core userbase, disappearing content ensured privacy from prying parents.
When Zuckerberg approached them with a USD 3 billion takeover, most people thought they would follow the same path with Instagram. However, as the story goes, they rejected the offer, and Instagram released Instagram Stories.
A decade later, Meta is using the same strategy, and Twitter is right to take notice.
Unlike Mastodon and Bluesky, which is having trouble attracting new users, Threads leverages on Instagram’s existing1.28 billion userbase.
Given these facts, Elon Musk is doing the right thing by letting his legal team do the talking. It’s a sign that despite his penchant for poking fun of everything, Musk knows a threat when he sees one.
Competition is fine, cheating is not
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2023
