Twitter accuses Microsoft of unauthorised data use, requests audit in letter to CEO Satya Nadella

Twitter has accused Microsoft Corp of violating an agreement regarding the use of Twitter's data, according to a letter obtained by Reuters on Thursday. The letter, written by Elon Musk's lawyer, Alex Spiro, alleges that Microsoft engaged in "unauthorised" usage of Twitter's data, including sharing it with government agencies without permission in certain instances.

In the correspondence addressed to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Spiro requested that the tech giant conduct an audit to assess its use of Twitter's content. The New York Times initially reported on the letter.

Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter imposes rate limits on the utilisation of its application programming interface (API) for all developers. However, the letter claims that Microsoft's applications accessed Twitter's APIs over 780 million times and retrieved more than 26 billion tweets in 2022 alone.

In response to the allegations, a Microsoft spokesperson stated that the company had received communication from a law firm representing Twitter, inquiring about its past use of the free Twitter APIs.

"We will review these questions and respond appropriately. We look forward to continuing our long-term partnership with the company," the spokesperson assured.

Also read: 'Twitter 2.0': Elon Musk's Twitter CEO pick Linda Yaccarino on future of the platform

This dispute between Twitter and Microsoft arises during a period when Elon Musk is engaged in a disagreement with Microsoft regarding its artificial intelligence (AI) platform. In April, Musk announced his intention to launch an AI platform called "TruthGPT" as a direct challenge to Microsoft and Google's offerings.

Musk has been critical of OpenAI, a company supported by Microsoft, which is responsible for the development of the popular chatbot, ChatGPT. He has accused OpenAI of "training the AI to lie" and has claimed that the organisation has transformed into a "closed source" and "for-profit" entity closely aligned with Microsoft.

Furthermore, Musk has directed criticism towards Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, accusing him of not taking AI safety seriously.

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