WASHINGTON 

Twitter threatened to sue Facebook parent, Meta, for its new Threads platform, according to a report Thursday.

The news website, Semafor, citing a letter dated Wednesday, reported that Twitter attorney Alex Spiro accused Meta of "systematic" and "unlawful misappropriation" of trade secrets following the launch of the Threads app.

Spiro said the new service was constructed by former Twitter employees who he said were deliberately assigned to create a "copycat" application.

"Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information," said the letter.

"Twitter reserves all rights, including, but not limited to, the right to seek both civil remedies and injunctive relief without further notice," it said.

"Competition is fine, cheating is not," Elon Musk responded to one tweet.

The new Meta service was launched Wednesday.

Meta Communications Director Andy Stone posted on Threads that no one on the app’s engineering team is a former Twitter employee.