Why is Elon Musk suing Microsoft? Twitter boss picks up new beef with tech giant

Elon Musk has made some serious allegations against Microsoft, however, he has not offered any evidence to back up his claim.

Elon Musk | Elon Musk vs Microsoft | Elon Musk suing Microsoft

Musk revealed his plans to sue the tech giant in response to a tweet that highlighted how Microsoft dropped Twitter from its advertising platform. (Image Source: Reuters)

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It seems all is not so well between Twitter chief Elon Musk and Microsoft. According to latest reports, Musk has threatened to sue Microsoft. The billionaire technocrat has accused the tech behemoth of scraping data from Twitter without permission. On Thursday, a Twitter handle tweeted that Microsoft was dropping Twitter from its advertising platform as they refused to pay Twitter’s API fees.

Musk responded to the tweet by saying that Microsoft trained illegally using Twitter and that it was time for a lawsuit. “They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time,” read Musk’s tweet. While the billionaire technocrat has made a serious allegation on the tech giant, he has not given any evidence to back his claim.

Earlier this week, in a notice Microsoft said that starting April 25, Smart Campaigns with Multi-platform will no longer be supporting Twitter. This essentially means that users will no longer be able to access their Twitter account through Microsoft’s social management tool, create and manage drafts or tweets, view past tweets and engagement or schedule tweets.

They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2023

Also Read | Elon Musk says he will launch rival to Microsoft-backed ChatGPT

The development comes days after the SpaceX chief announced that he is starting his own AI company, propelling him towards being a direct competitor to Sam Altman’s OpenAI, an AI start-up in which Microsoft has pumped billions of dollars.

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Reportedly, Musk’s new venture is known as X.AI and was incorporated on March 9. X.AI has Musk as the director while Jared Birchall as the secretary. Ahead of the developments, there have been several reports suggesting the billionaire’s plans to establish his own AI company. One of the reports even suggested that he had invested in thousands of GPU processors from Nvidia that have the potential to fuel large language models such as GPT-4.

Ironically, Musk was among the dignitaries who signed an open letter seeking a momentary halt on AI developments citing risk to society. Not only this, the Twitter boss has also attacked OpenAI on numerous occasions.

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