Elon Musk threatens to sue Microsoft: ‘Lawsuit time’

‘Ripping off Twitter database, demonetizing it and then selling our data to others isn’t a winning solution’

Twitter chief Elon Musk has threatened to sue Microsoft after the tech giant revealed it is dropping the microblogging site from one of its advertising platforms.

Mr Musk also alleged without providing evidence that Microsoft was training its AI programmes illegally using Twitter data.

The Tesla titan’s tweets come after Microsoft announced this week that starting from 25 April its Smart Campaigns advertising platform will no longer support Twitter.

Microsoft’s Smart Campaigns has been used by advertisers to manage their social media ad campaigns, including on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

But the tech giant noted that employees would no longer be able to access their Twitter account through the social management tool without explaining why it was winding down the support.

However, Microsoft said in a notice that other social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn will continue to be available.

Microsoft’s move comes following Twitter announcing that it would be largely cutting its free Application Developer Interface, or API, support, effectively killing off third-party services that rely on it.

The API system is used to communicate with other services and helps organisations comb through Twitter data.

However, the social media company reportedly was planning to charge companies from $42,000 to as much as $210,000 per month for access to its API.

Microsoft’s move comes at a rough time for Twitter that has been continuously trying to boost its revenue with new strategies and cut costs, including by mass layoffs and selling office infrastructure.

Weeks after Mr Musk took over Twitter as the new head, the company has lost a large fraction of its top 1,000 advertisers amid concerns over content moderation on the social media platform.

However, earlier this month, in an interview with BBC, he said: “If current trends continue, I think we could be profitable, or to be more precise, cash flow positive this quarter if things keep going well.”

“I think almost all advertisers have come back or said they are going to come back. There’s very few exceptions,” the multibillionaire said.

In a separate tweet on Wednesday, the SpaceX and Tesla chief said he was “open to ideas” about the microblogging platform’s data use.

“I’m open to ideas, but ripping off the Twitter database, demonetizing it (removing ads) and then selling our data to others isn’t a winning solution,” he said.