Elon Musk has escalated his argument with Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, calling him an “idiot” after threatening a lawsuit over his new Threads app.
In response to screenshots of Zuckerberg, 39, laughing at burger chain Wendy telling him to go into space to “get Musk really angry,” the Tesla CEO simply replied, “Zuck is an idiot. “
Musk, 52, and fellow tech billionaire Zuckerberg saw tensions rise after they agreed to face off in a cage fight.
In a viral back-and-forth, Musk tweeted on June 20 and boasted that he was “up for a cage fight if so,” to which the meta boss replied on Instagram, “Send me the location.”
Zuckerberg broke his decades-long silence on Twitter by tweeting a Spider-Man meme to start threads.
Musk, 52, and fellow tech billionaire Zuckerberg saw tensions rise after they agreed to face off in a cage fight
His comment is the latest in a war of words that recently broke out between the two tech billionaires
The Twitter-like app Threads calls retweets “reposts” and tweets “threads”. It allows users to post up to 500 characters of text and up to five minutes of video.
Musk has also threatened to file a lawsuit against the platform, accusing it of poaching former employees to create a “copycat” app.
Twitter attorney Alex Spiro wrote in a letter published Thursday: “Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms (“Meta”) has engaged in the systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of trade secrets and other intellectual property of Twitter.”
“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights and requests Meta to take immediate action to stop using Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information.”
He also claimed that Meta hired these employees to create “copycat threads” with intent to use Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property to further the development of the Twitter competitor.
The decision to create the rival comes after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October last year.
Since then, Musk has launched a series of controversial moves — including downsizing and capping the number of messages people can see per day.
This has caused Twitter’s value to plummet. Fidelity recently estimated that Twitter is worth a third of what Musk paid.
In response to screenshots of Zuckerberg, 39, laughing at burger chain Wendy telling him to go into space to “get Musk really angry,” the Tesla CEO simply replied, “Zuck is an idiot. “
Musk is reportedly training in martial arts ahead of his head-to-head duel with Zuckerberg — surprising the tech world
He criticized Meta’s new platform, claiming it spreads “fake happiness” like Instagram – which is also owned by Meta.
Musk responded to news of the potential lawsuit by tweeting, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
Zuckerberg has not yet responded to the threat of a lawsuit.
Threads has been dubbed the “Twitter killer” on the internet because of hostilities between the rival billionaires who recently agreed to face off in a cage fight – with the Coliseum in Rome as a potential venue alongside Las Vegas.
Chef Gordon Ramsay, pop star Shakira, and Mark Hoyle, better known as YouTuber LadBaby, have already joined Threads and announced their presence on the app.
Zuckerberg said this week, “I think there should be an app for public conversations with more than a billion people.” Twitter had the opportunity but didn’t make it. Hopefully we will.’
Twitter has been in a precipitous decline since being taken over by what was once the world’s richest man – who was keen to take on the project after becoming disillusioned with the site’s perceived bias and moderation policies.
Twitter, owned by Elon Musk, has threatened legal action against Meta’s latest app Threads
Zuckerberg and Musk joked about fighting each other — but now it looks like there could be a courtroom argument after threads were published
Threads has been dubbed the “Twitter killer” on the internet due to hostilities between the rival billionaires, who recently agreed to face off in a cage fight. Pictured: Musk training for sumo wrestling
He said he wanted to build a “common digital town square” where all voices could be heard and discussed in a healthy way.
Personnel and functional changes as well as the release of the “Twitter files” took the website in a radical new direction within a few weeks.
The Twitter revolution turned into a bloodbath, cutting staff by 80 percent to align with the new direction, and then losing users and advertisers as a lean team struggled to deal with online disinformation, trolling, and identity theft .
Musk also recently announced that he would cap the number of tweets people can see per day to 600. Users who paid $8 for a blue tick were able to see more, but the cap was still 6,000 views.
Twitter users have declared the site “dead” since the controversial restrictions.
Musk claimed that the restrictions are a temporary measure put in place because “our data has been plundered to the point that it has impacted service to ordinary users.”