Elon Musk Accuses Microsoft Of Twitter Data Mining: 'Lawsuit Time'

Microsoft Corporation MSFT plans to drop Twitter from its advertising plan, but Elon Musk is not worried — because he is suiting up for a lawsuit. 

What Happened: On Thursday, responding to news that Microsoft is kicking Twitter from its advertising platform as they are refusing to pay the microblogging site’s exorbitantly high API access pricing, Musk said, “Lawsuit time.”

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The Twitter CEO further explained his reasoning behind the statement saying Microsoft mined the platform’s data illegally and trained its programs. 

While announcing that Microsoft will drop Twitter from its advertising plan next week, the company stated, “Starting on April 25, 2023, Smart Campaigns with Multi-platform will no longer support Twitter.”

From April 25, users will no longer be able to access their Twitter account through Microsoft’s social management tool, create and manage tweets, view past engagements, or schedule tweets. 

The tech giant added that other social media platforms like Meta Platforms Inc.’s META Facebook, Instagram and Microsoft’s LinkedIn would remain available. 

Why It’s Important: It is possible that while accusing Microsoft of mining illegal Twitter data to train programs, Musk was referring to the company’s AI models. 

While Musk did not present any proof to support his allegation of illegal training, his “lawsuit” statement came just as Reddit said it intends to charge for API access due to the use of its user-generated data for training AI models.

This isn’t the first time Musk and Microsoft have been at loggerheads. Last month, Musk accused Microsoft of gaining “exclusive access” to OpenAI’s entire codebase. 

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