Twitter has threatened to sue Meta following the launch of a rival app, Threads.
In a cease and desist letter addressed to Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg and dated July 5, the company has been accused of a "systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation" of Twitter's trade secrets and intellectual property.
The letter written by Twitter boss Elon Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro claims that Threads was developed by former Twitter employees.
He said the ex-employees owe obligations to Twitter, adding that some of them still have access to the company's trade secrets and have improperly retained some of Twitter's 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," Spiro stated.
Twitter has also demanded that Meta stop the use of any of its rival's trade secrets and 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 retentions, disclosures or use of its intellectual property by Meta," Spiro added.
He also cautioned Meta from scraping Twitter's following or followers data.
Further, Twitter wants Meta to preserve any documents that might be needed if a dispute ensued between the two companies and Twitter's former employees.
They include all documents of recruitment, hiring and onboarding of the employees, development of Threads and any communication between the employees and anyone connected to Meta.
Taking to Twitter, Musk confirmed the reports of the suit.
"Competition is fine, cheating is not," he tweeted.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said, “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”
