On Thursday, a lawyer for Elon Musk’s Twitter accused Meta of leveraging “trade secrets” to launch its Twitter competitor, Threads, which garnered more than 30 million sign ups in its first 24 hours of operation. Musk’s threats, however, did nothing to slow adoption of the new platform. In fact, user takeup increased.
By Friday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Threads had achieved 70 million sign ups, a remarkable feat in so short a time.
“70 million sign ups on Threads as of this morning,” Zuckerberg wrote on the site. “Way beyond our expectations.”
On Friday evening, Marketwatch reported that Quiver Quantitative estimated Threads now has over 75 million users.
Hours after Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms launched Threads, billed as a “Twitter killer,” a lawyer for the Musk-owned service sent Meta a pointedly-constructed letter. It blasted Threads as a “copycat” based on improperly obtained “trade secrets.” There was no formal legal action accompanying the letter, but it was a clear warning shot.
Semafor was the first to report the legal broadside, which the outlet described as a sign that Threads is “the most serious rival yet to Musk’s chaotic, but still-central, platform.”
Quinn Emanuel attorney Alex Spiro wrote in the letter that Twitter “intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information.”