Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is set to launch a rival to Elon Musk’s Twitter within days in an epic “battle of the billionaires” social media showdown.
The Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp giant on Tuesday trailed its own app called Threads — immediately dubbed a “Twitter Killer” — in Apple’s App Store ahead of a launch on Thursday when it will be available to download.
Tech commentators said the app appeared to have many similar features and functions to Twitter and reflects a long held ambition of Mr Zuckerberg to supplant the platform known for its millions of users’ “tweets”.
A promotional preview of the “text-based conversation” app, which will be linked to Instagram, says Threads will be a place “where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow”.
It adds: “Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favourite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”
In an apparent fresh swipe at Mr Zuckerberg, Mr Musk responded to a tweet about Threads: “Thank goodness they’re so sanely run.”
The move comes after months of turmoil at Twitter since it was bought by the Tesla and SpaceX boss in October last year for $44 billion (£35.7 billion). In the latest bizarre move, Mr Musk imposed a limit on the number of tweets that can be viewed in a day, effectively blocking access to the app after users exceeded their “rate limit”. Unverified accounts were initially limited to viewing 600 tweets a day, but this was later upped to 1,000.
Mr Musk, who earlier this year appointed Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s chief executive, said the “temporary emergency measure” had been imposed to prevent data scraping.
The company has also said that its popular TweetDeck dashboard will in future only be available to verified users who pay an £11 a month subscription to secure a “blue tick” that was previously available for free.
Meta bosses are widely known to have been following the events at Twitter closely and waiting for the best moment to strike with a rival service. The plan to launch the platform that has become Threads was first revealed in June when Meta chief product officer Chris Cox described it as “our response to Twitter”, adding: “We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run.”
In December, a report in the New York Times quoted Meta executives discussing the fallout from Twitter’s chaotic new ownership. One said in an internal post: “Twitter is in crisis and Meta needs its mojo back.”
The imminent launch of Threads extends the bitter rivalry between the tycoons, who are two of the richest men on Earth worth a combined $350 billion. In the oddest twist so far, Mr Musk last month challenged the Facebook founder to a “cage match” no holds barred martial arts fight. In response Mr Zuckerberg posted on Instagram: “Send Me Location.” Talks about the bout are said to be still progressing.
Threads is the latest in a long line of rivals to Twitter hoping to take advantage of its owner’s increasingly erratic behaviour, including Mastodon and Bluesky, but they are only a fraction of the size of Meta. In another twist, Jack Dorsey — Twitter’s co-founder who is currently working on BlueSky — tweeted a screenshot of Threads’ app privacy information with the caption “All your Threads belong to us”. Meta and Twitter representatives did not immediately respond with a comment.
