Elon Musk claims it is 'lawsuit time' after Microsoft drops Twitter ads

Elon Musk threatened to sue Microsoft in a recent tweet.

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Twitter CEO Elon Musk has seen no shortage of legal issues throughout his career, whether it be at his recently-acquired social media company or Tesla. Now, Musk may be on the brink of igniting a new legal conflict, this time with one of the world’s largest companies. After Microsoft decided to drop Twitter from its advertising platform, Elon Musk has threatened to sue the company.

In a statement earlier today, Microsoft announced that “starting on April 25, 2023, Smart Campaigns with Multi-platform will no longer support Twitter.” The tech giant’s decision to remove Twitter from its advertising platform came as a result of the social media company’s new fees for full access to its API. In response to a tweet reporting on the news, Musk stated that “[Microsoft] trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time.”

In a subsequent tweet responding to questions about Twitter’s decision to paywall access to its API and the impact that can have on external links and embeds to the site, Musk said that “I’m open to ideas, but ripping off the Twitter database, demonetizing it (removing ads) and then selling our data to others isn’t a winning solution.”

If Elon Musk does indeed file a lawsuit against Microsoft, it would be quite a big deal. One of the world’s richest men going after one of the largest companies would undoubtedly have ramifications for both Twitter and Microsoft. As of now, there has been no official legal filing against Microsoft on behalf of Twitter, and Microsoft has not responded to Musk’s threat to sue. We’ll be sure to update this story if and when new information becomes available.

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

From The Chatty
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    April 19, 2023 2:50 PM

    Donovan Erskine posted a new article, Elon Musk claims it is 'lawsuit time' after Microsoft drops Twitter ads

    • reply
      April 19, 2023 4:33 PM

      [deleted]

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        April 19, 2023 5:19 PM

        I mean, he can decide & get mad about those things. Problem is that when he stomps his little jackbooted feet together, nobody necessarily has to give a single solitary fuck.

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        April 19, 2023 11:06 PM

        Elon Musk seems like exactly the kind of guy who would get mad at a partner for having had previous relationships.

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      April 19, 2023 8:00 PM

      Musk is a pathetic loser.

      Now that that's out of the way -

      I know it's probably not going to happen but it'd be pretty sweet if Shack didn't embed tweets and just posted screenshots of them instead, maybe with links if you must. No reason to give Twitter any more views than necessary these days.

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      April 19, 2023 9:03 PM

      Yeah, his lawsuit v Twitter worked out great for Twitter shareholders

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