Elon Musk vs Microsoft in “Lawsuit Time” Over Twitter Data Breach?  

• Microsoft Advertising will suspend all Twitter Services from April 25.
• Elon Musk is against tech giants illegally exploiting data for training AI.

Grabbing the tech world’s focus, Elon Musk hints at a “lawsuit time” with Microsoft against the “illegal” exploitation of Twitter’s data for equipping its AI model. This threat arrives just in time after the announcement of Microsoft abandoning Twitter services on its advertising platform.

Microsoft denied paying the high API fees on Twitter. Thus, it chose to discard all Twitter services on its Digital Marketing Center (DMC) dashboard from April 25. The giant tech behemoth posted an official notice highlighting what services will be excluded. 

As per the notice, users cannot create, and manage drafts or tweets and schedule tweets. They can neither view past tweets nor engagements. Services related to LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram remain unchanged.

Twitter updated and switched to offering paid API plans in March. The new plans included varying price packages at each tier — from $42,000 per month with 50M tweets to $210,000 per month with 200M tweets. Several organizations opposed this and denied paying for it. Significantly, Microsoft also joined the force.

Advertisers were major contributors to Twitter’s revenue. Reportedly, 90% of the social media company’s earning in 2021 was associated with advertising. But after Musk’s Twitter takeover, prominent advertisers withdrew from Twitter. 

Musk Rebukes Microsoft’s AI Approach

Although being an ex-co-founder of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, he accuses that OpenAI has transformed into a “closed source, for-profit organization” ever since its acquisition by Microsoft. Elon Musk stands against the misleading way of training these AI innovations. 

Following Microsoft Advertising’s announcement on Wednesday, Musk tweeted the possibility of him suing the tech giant for initiating a Twitter data breach. This is presumably an action against entities that try to illegally use data on Twitter for training its AI model. 

Previously, the billionaire signed an open letter demanding a halt on ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence (AI) projects. However, he also hinted at future plans to rival Microsoft’s and Google’s AI with a model dubbed “TruthGPT.”

Moreover, Elon Musk-led Twitter is removing the “legacy verified checkmarks” on Thursday (4/20). Through this move, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO intends to democratize media and advocate his way of pursuing truth. Users or organizations will have to adopt a subscription service such as Twitter Blue.

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