Threads reaches 50million users as Twitter accuse Mark Zuckerberg’s project of being a ‘copycat’

Twitter rival app Threads has already hit 50 million users and seen nearly 100million posts a little over 24 hours after it launched.

The Instagram and Facebook owner launched the anticipated app at midnight on Wednesday night, and it has also now had 190million likes.

It’s a big win for Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg in his battle with Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in October.

Twitter has threatened to sue Meta over Threads, alleging that it stole trade secrets. However, Meta has fought back by appearing to deny that former Twitter employees worked on the creation of the app and used insider knowledge.

Mr Zuckerberg wrote on Threads at about 4pm UK time yesterday that more than 30million people had signed up to his new rival messaging app.

Then, a post on Threads by Alex Heath, editor at news website The Verge, about eight hours later at midnight last night UK time, said: ‘This app has surpassed 48 million sign-ups, per internal Meta data shared with me.’

About one hour later at 1am this morning, New York-based digital communications expert Joe Scannell posted that the app had seen ’50million sign-ups in a little over 24 hours’, describing the figure of 50,086,772 as ‘wild’.

It comes after a cease-and-desist letter was sent to Mr Zuckerberg by a lawyer acting for Twitter claiming Threads is a ‘copycat’ of the Musk-owned platform.

The lawyer for Twitter, Alex Spiro, accused Meta of engaging in ‘systemic, wilful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property’.

The letter, which was first reported by Semafor, accused Meta of hiring ‘dozens’ of former Twitter employees who ‘have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information’.

In a tweet referencing the letter yesterday evening, Twitter owner Elon Musk said: ‘Competition is fine, cheating is not.’