Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella received a letter from Elon Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, who said the software company might have violated Twitter’s Developer Agreement and Policy for its API. No legal action has been mentioned in the letter, but Spiro demanded some records from Microsoft for Twitter’s compliance audit.
Twitter recently announced the change in its API pricing, and many companies and developers expressed dismay about it. Even Microsoft seemingly responded to this news negatively after reports of removing Twitter from its advertising platform. Musk responded by saying, “They trained illegally using Twitter data,” adding it was “Lawsuit time.”
Musk didn’t specify the reason behind the legal action threat, but it is likely related to the OpenAI model now being used on Microsoft products. After this incident, however, Musk’s company is giving more clarity about this through a letter Microsoft recently received.
According to Spiro, Microsoft used eight Twitter API apps for its products and services, such as Xbox One, Bing Pages, Azure, Power Platform, and Ads. The lawyer added that by using the APIs, Microsoft agreed with Twitter’s policies, which it failed to observe. Spiro listed some reasons to explain the situation, including automation restriction violations and using the APIs beyond the limit and for “unauthorized uses and purposes.”
“The Agreement makes clear that Microsoft was obligated to disclose and obtain approval for its intended use case for each Microsoft App, and to notify Twitter of any substantive modification to those use cases,” the letter reads. “Yet Microsoft did not identify any use case for six of the eight Microsoft Apps that it continued to operate until last month. Further, at least some of the Microsoft Apps appear to have engaged in expressly prohibited use cases.”
In the end, Spiro asked Microsoft for some data and records for the past two years, adding it is expected to observe “full cooperation and assistance” as indicated in the Twitter policy. The letter doesn’t mention any plans for legal action from Twitter, but it is likely to do it… and this “compliance audit” is probably the first step for this preparation.
