Elon Musk threatens legal action against Microsoft

In a recent tweet, tech billionaire Elon Musk threatened to take legal action against Microsoft over claims that the company "trained illegally using Twitter data." The statement came in response to Microsoft's announcement that it would stop supporting Twitter on its advertising platform, reportedly due to Twitter's recent changes requiring payment to access its API.

The threat might be over Microsoft's involvement with Open AI. While OpenAI, which uses Twitter data to train large language models such as ChatGPT, is not affiliated with Microsoft, the company recently invested in the organization, which is developing AI for tools like Bing, Edge, and Microsoft 365.

It remains unclear whether Musk will follow through on his threat to sue Microsoft, as he has made similar threats in the past that did not come to fruition. Nonetheless, this latest development highlights the growing tension around the use of Twitter data by technology companies and the potential legal ramifications of such activities.

Microsoft has declined to comment on the matter, while Twitter's press email responded to inquiries with a poop emoji.

This news also coincides with Microsoft's recent decision to stop supporting Twitter on its advertising platform, effective April 25th, 2023. This means that companies can no longer use Microsoft's platform to manage their tweets or engagement. This decision is reportedly linked to Twitter's new pricing arrangement, which requires large companies like Microsoft to pay as much as $42,000 monthly to access the platform's API.

The new pricing system has already led some smaller developers, like Tweetbot maker Tapbots, to abandon the platform altogether. It remains to be seen how larger companies will navigate this new landscape and whether legal action will be taken against those who allegedly misuse Twitter data for training their AI systems.