The race to the top between Elon Musk’s Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg’s new Threads app grows more aggressive as the heat turns up.
Key Details
- Threads set a record on Monday when Mark Zuckerberg revealed that the newly released social media app had already drawn 100 million signups in five days, breaking ChatGPT’s previous record for that feat in three months.
- Alternatively, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince tweeted that Twitter usage had heavily declined at that same time, with site traffic “tanking.”
- Musk and Zuckerberg took the opportunity over the weekend to insult each other, with the latter deriding Musk’s tweet style and Musk calling his opponent “Zuck the Cuck.”
- A Thursday report from Semafor might confirm that, as Twitter’s lawyers have reportedly threatened to sue Meta Platforms for violating trade secrets in the creation of Threads.
- Musk and Zuckerberg previously discussed hosting a real-life boxing match last month that was subsequently called off.
Why It’s Important
The launch of Meta Platform’s new “Twitter Killer” app on Wednesday was a shot across the bow against Twitter, which faces a long road to profitability and eventual success. Elon Musk’s regime as the owner of Twitter has drawn heavy criticism for his erratic behavior, the website’s volatility, and his practice of firing large volumes of employees from the outset of taking over the social media app.
Threads has been advertised out of the gate as a more stable replacement for Twitter, largely being built by former Twitter employees hired by Meta, which has raised concerns that the new app was made using illegally stolen trade secrets. Zuckerberg has not responded to Musk’s allegations. Meta’s employees have snubbed Musk, saying that the new app will be “sanely run” and that Threads is designed to appeal to communities “that never really embraced Twitter.”
Twitter defenders argue that Threads is far more censorious and offers fewer features than its predecessor, which Musk still intends to evolve into the “everything app” that is capable of functioning as a video-sharing platform, financial platform, and a haven for free speech. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey claims that Twitter is in good hands.
Financial supporters of both Twitter and Meta Platforms are hedging their bets on both platforms at the moment. Many key funds have large stakes in the future of both social media platforms, including Baron Funds ($100 million in Twitter, $60 million in Meta), Fidelity ($316 million in Twitter, $415 in Meta), and Andreessen Horowitz ($400 million in Twitter, $13 million in Meta), Axios reports.
