Musk threatens to sue Microsoft over ‘illegally using Twitter data’

NEW DELHI: Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Thursday threatened to sue Satya Nadella-run Microsoft over claims that the company “trained illegally using Twitter data”.

Musk reacted after Microsoft dropped Twitter from its advertising platform as it allegedly refused to pay Twitter’s application programming interface (API) fees.

“They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time,” said Musk in a tweet. His statement is likely over Microsoft-owned OpenAI allegedly using Twitter data to train the large language model for the AI chatbot called ChatGPT.

Microsoft declined to comment on Musk’s threat. In a message on its support page for Microsoft’s advertising platform, the tech giant said it will “no longer support Twitter” starting on April 25. “Starting on April 25, 2023, Smart Campaigns with Multi-platform will no longer support Twitter,” it read. “You’ll be unable to access your Twitter account through our social management tool, create and manage drafts or Tweets, view past tweets and engagement, schedule Tweets,” the message read.

Other social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn will continue to be available.

Under Twitter’s new pricing model, companies like Microsoft may need to pay as much as $42,000 per month to get access to Twitter API.