Meta has responded to Elon Musk’s lawsuit threat against its new platform Threads saying that none of the staff working on the app are former Twitter employees. On Thursday, Twitter threatened Meta with legal action over its new social media app Threads, claiming it is a “copycat” platform it built by hiring former Twitter staff. Since its roll out, Meta’s text-based platform built in partnership with Instagram, has racked up tens of millions signups, seemingly becoming the most rapidly downloaded app ever and the most popular Twitter alternative yet. Just hours after its launch, however, Twitter attorney Alex Spiro sent a letter to Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg arguing that his company was guilty of “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property”, according to Semafor. “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,” Mr Spiro said in the letter. “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 retention, disclosure, or use of its intellectual property by Meta,” the attorney added. Mr Spiro alleged that Meta hired dozens of former Twitter staff who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information”. He said “Meta’s copycat ‘Threads’ app” was built 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”. The attorney argued that this was “in violation of both state and federal law as well as those employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter”. Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, responded to the claims on Friday saying that the Threads engineering team does not have any former Twitter employee. “To be clear: No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee – that’s just not a thing,” Mr Stone wrote on Threads. Mr Musk reponded to Twitter threatening Meta with a lawsuit saying: “Competition is fine, cheating is not.” Read More What is Threads? All your questions about Meta's new Twitter rival, answered. Threads is already more than three times bigger than every Twitter rival combined I tried Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter rival, Threads – I’m not impressed Mark Zuckerberg accused of hypocrisy for shielding children’s faces in Instagram post Kim Kardashian, Rylan Clark and Dalai Lama among those joining new app Threads Twitter threatens legal action against Meta over new ‘Threads’ app

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Elon Musk’s X has been ordered by a judge to pay $1.1m in legal fees to its laid off former executives. Since Mr Musk’s takeover of X, the company formerly known as Twitter, the multibillionaire and X have faced a number of lawsuits. These include suits over the firm’s failure to pay its vendors and delays in paying rent for its office premises, as well as former employees suing Twitter alleging they were laid off without adequate notice. On Tuesday, Delaware Chancery Court judge Kathaleen St J McCormick ruled in favour of the company’s ex-chief Parag Agrawal and said X must pay $1.1m in legal fees linked with probes of the platform during Mr Musk’s 2022 takeover, Bloomberg first reported. After buying out the microblogging platform in November last year, the Tesla titan fired Mr Agrawal and Twitter’s then-lead policy officer Vijaya Gadde as well as a number of other executives. Mr Agrawal and Ms Gadde then sued Twitter/X for failing to pay for their legal bills, including for the latter’s appearance before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. The lawsuit filing alleged the company paid only about $600,000 of what it owes, withholding $1.1m in fees for its lawyers’ work representing the former executives in an inquiry on the role played by social media on US elections. The filing alleged Twitter/X “breached the agreements and contravened the bylaws” by not paying the former staff. The latest ruling by the Delaware court judge observed that X “violated its duties to cover legal expenses generated by their work for the company”. While acknowledging that $1.1m is a lot of money, the judge still ruled in favour of the former Twitter executives. “I have reviewed the amount in question, and although it is high and probably higher than most humans would like to pay, it’s not unreasonable,” judge McCormick was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. X did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment. The company is also being sued over its rebrand to X by an ad agency also named X, alleging the social media platform’s new name violates Florida common law because of “unfair competition and trademark and service mark infringement”. Read More Elon Musk’s mockery of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky ‘unhelpful’ Elon Musk’s X Corp sued by another social network company named X ‘Reckless’ Elon Musk hit with $1m lawsuit for accusing student of being in Proud Boys ‘false flag’ attack Elon Musk’s X Corp sued by another social network company named X Elon Musk to live stream himself gaming on X in ‘everything app’ bid Musk confirms he is cutting election integrity staff from X/Twitter ahead of 2024

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A man has been nicknamed the "Hardest Geezer” after he embarked on a mission to run the entire length of the continent of Africa for charity. Who is the the Hardest Geezer? Russell Cook, from Worthing in West Sussex, is no stranger to some physically brutal challenges that have earned him the label. In 2022, he was the first person to run from Asia to London and now, the 26-year-old has taken it to another level, aiming to become the first person to run the length of the African continent. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Project Africa began on 22 April and, if completed, will be the equivalent of Cook running 360 marathons in the space of 240 days. Now, 24 days into his journey, he has covered several hundred kilometres and even been stalked by wild cats and thieves in the process. His route began in South Africa and will see him travel north up the west coast of Africa through Namibia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, Algeria before finally ending his mammoth run in Tunisia. Cook is completing the run to raise money for two charities – The Running Charity and WaterAid. At the time of writing, he has raised £13,300 of his £100,000 target. He is documenting his journey on social media, regularly updating his Twitter, Instagram and YouTube channels on his progress. In one video, Cook revealed he was “absolutely bouncing” and was looking forward to reaching a petrol garage 6km down the road where he was told they sold Cornish pasties. In a Q&A with Twitter users, he gave his advice on how others can motivate themselves. Cook explained: “Be accountable to someone or something bigger than yourself.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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