Twitter accuses Meta of stealing trade secrets for its new Threads app

Twitter's lawyer wrote a letter to Facebook genitor Meta connected Wednesday, accusing the institution of "systematic" and "unlawful misappropriation" of commercialized secrets pursuing the motorboat of its Threads service.

The missive from longtime Elon Musk lawyer Alex Spiro alleged that Meta's caller Twitter clone was built by erstwhile Twitter employees "deliberately assigned" to make a "copycat" app. Semafor was archetypal to study connected the letter.

Spiro offered nary factual examples of Twitter employees utilizing commercialized secrets to physique the app, which notched millions of users wrong hours of its launch. But the connection — sent connected aforesaid time that Threads opened to the nationalist — shows Musk's level of interest fixed Meta's userbase and method capacities.

"No 1 connected the Threads engineering squad is simply a erstwhile Twitter employee," Andy Stone, Meta communications director, posted connected Threads. "That's conscionable not a thing."

Since Musk's $44 cardinal acquisition of Twitter successful October, the tract has been riddled with challenges, including immoderate advertisers suspending their campaigns. Musk has dramatically downsized the company, leaving it dilatory to respond to glitches.

Spiro said Meta is "expressly prohibited" from crawling oregon scraping Twitter's follower data, without providing grounds that Meta has engaged successful that activity. Musk antecedently alleged that scraping of Twitter idiosyncratic information occurred connected a ample scale, though he, too, neglected of amusement circumstantial examples.

On Thursday, Twitter's caller CEO Linda Yaccarino tweeted that the institution was "often imitated," a wide notation to Threads.

Threads has already launched with practice from large brands and celebrities. The app inactive lacks immoderate critical features, including a web app, and isn't yet generating revenue.

WATCH: Threads' velocity of maturation has been perfectly breathtaking