Twitter has sent a cease and desist letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg warning that legal action will be taken in light of theft of protected intellectual property and trade secrets by Meta’s new Twitter clone Threads.

Elon Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro delivered the letter which accuses Meta of “systematic, willful and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”

“Over the past year, Meta has hired dozens of former Twitter employees,” the letter continued, adding “Twitter knows that these employees previously worked at Twitter; that these employees had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information; that these employees owe ongoing obligations to Twitter; and that many of these employees have improperly retained Twitter 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,” the letter further asserts.

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.”

Twitter will seek “both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice to prevent any further retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta,” the letter futher notes.

“Please consider this letter a formal notice that Meta must preserve any documents that could be relevant to a dispute between Twitter, Meta, and/or former Twitter employees who now work for Meta,” the letter also states, adding “That includes, but is not limited to, all documents related to the recruitment, hiring, and onboarding of these former Twitter employees, the development of Meta’s competing Threads app, and any communications between these former Twitter employees and any agent, representative, or employee or Meta.”

Musk tweeted that “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”

Musk also replied to several other Twitter posts relating to Threads:

Meta has bragged that Threads has received 30 million signups in 24 hours.

Meanwhile, users have already reported extensive censorship from the moment they signed up.

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