Twitter founder Jack Dorsey left unimpressed after Mark Zuckerberg requests to follow him on Threads
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey was left unmoved by a follow request from Mark Zuckerberg on Threads Sunday - days after slamming the Facebook creator's brand-new social media app as a carbon copy of his own.
Taking to Twitter to do so, Dorsey - who stepped down as the site's chairman in 2021 - posted a screenshot of his own Threads account after the app's surprise rollout last week.
Within the post, Dorsey's some 6.5million followers on the platform were graced with the peculiar sight of a blue check-marked headshot of perhaps his biggest rival in Zuckerberg, 39.
'Zuck requests to follow you', a note next to the photo read - making it clear the screenshot showed a follow request sent on the new platform.
Apparently unswayed by what seemed to be a digital olive branch, 46-year-old Dorsey took to his own site to express his distaste, while offering a curt statement that seemed to suggest he had rebuffed the request - or has at least let it languish in social media limbo to make his competitor sweat.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey was left unmoved by a follow request from Mark Zuckerberg on Threads Sunday. The 46-year-old shared a screengrab to show his apparent distatste
Dorsey - who stepped down as the site's chairman in 2021 - posted the screenshot from his own Threads account days after the app's surprise rollout last week, and days after slamming the Facebook creator's brand-new social media app as a carbon copy of his own
Meta owner Zuckerberg unveiled Threads last week, and more than a 100 million have migrated to the app in the span since
'Too soon b,' the former Twitter boss - who has criticized Threads despite being one of roughly 100million to sign up in its first week, wrote in a caption, using slang that jokingly labeled his longtime competitor a friend.
The wayward comment came after Dorsey, on Thursday, appeared to take a shot at both The Social Network subject and his latest online creation, which serves as a text-based extension of the Instagram app, and is being billed as a 'Twitter killer'.
Dorsey, who came up with the concept of the app now owned by Elon Musk back in the mid 2000s, tweeted: 'We wanted flying cars, instead we got 7 Twitter clones.'
The applications in the post included Meta's Threads, Twitter, Jack Dorsey's new platform Bluesky, Mastodon and Post News.
Dorsey's most recent response, meanwhile, has since been viewed more than 6million times, while amassing more than 50,000 likes.
It also elicited a wave of reaction from users on Twitter - which days before Threads released decided to limit how many tweets users could see in a day.
'Block him jack,' said one user - while another jokingly offered a statement meant to be read as if it were from the Meta boss.
'"Hey I made this new app and I kinda regret it - do you have any advice”"' it read - seemingly poking fun at Dorsey's dreams for his platform likely being dashed during criticism his site faced in 2020 and afterwards for repeated instances of censorship, and its eventually sale to Musk years later.
Within that span, Dorsey stepped down from his long-held post on the Silicon Valley firm's board of directors, before later airing his disapproval at the direction Musk, 56, planned to bring his multibillion dollar creation.
Now nearly a year after the Tesla boss's takeover, Twitter has been left stuggling - after four rounds of firings that has seen roughly 80 percent of the some 8,000 strong workforce permanently nixed.
The company's value has proved volatile under Musk's unpredictable tenure, pluniging roughly 66 percent and costing the former world's richest man billions of dollars on paper.
Originally worth $44billion, the San Francisco based firm is now worth just one-third of what Musk paid in October - and the sudden, and fast-growing popularity of Threads looks to now being Twitter's user numbers in jeopardy as well.
On Thursday an attorney for Twitter indicated the company might even sue Meta - its parent company - for hiring former staff with access to its trade secrets.
With legal action potentially on the way - along with a rumored cage fight between Zuckerberg and Elon Musk - the founder of Facebook appears to be attempting to smooth thing over with Twitter execs of the past in Dorsey, who appeared unamused by the gesture. Several flocked to the - no pun intended - thread to revel in that sentiment, with several sharing memes to do so
Meanwhile, Musk, Twitter's new owner, may have lost around $30billion on his investment in the company, after a slew of changes and layoffs, and the introduction of the 'kinder' app Threads
Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey were among the first to join Threads
Driving the migration of many users away from Twitter is a hostile political environment on the platform caused in part by Musk's relaxed approach to content moderation
Online data service Quiver Quantitative reported that the app passed 100 million users at 3am EST
Zuckerberg has opted to capitalize on the fact swathes of Twitter's old user base started to feel disenfranchised.
Some Twitter users expressed concern the platform has not done enough to curtail hate speech and that it is descending into a far-right forum are now loudly and proudly jumping ship.
Billed as a 'friendly' alternative to Twitter for users that dislike Musk and the direction he is taking the company, Threads has already amassed an estimated 113million users in just over a week, with famous figures like Gordon Ramsey and Shakira among the first to hop on board.
Users can port their Instagram followers to Threads, so stars like the celebs mentioned did not have to do much to carry over their fanbase - sporting 1 and 3.4 million followers respectively within days of the platform's launch.
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez - known to have had multiple spats with Musk himself - is also now active on the Threads, but like several others who have migrated, continues to use Twitter as a median.
The Washington Post was also among the first 260,000 users, according to the New York Observer, and The New York Times followed suit shortly after.
Other outlets like the Miami Herald and the Charlotte Observer were also on the app. DailyMail.com is also on Threads.
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker was also among the first to get on Threads and in her very first post indirectly addressed the politically fraught social media climate.
'@threadsapp might prove to be a platform where folks are kind, thoughtful, don't feel encouraged to be mean, aggressive or hostile, there are other channels for that,' she wrote. 'This could be a new day.'
An interesting exception to the trend was the presence of conservative personality and founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk on Threads.
Investigative journalism non-profit ProPublica was also very active on the app, not only did it create its own profile but it also created a list of its reporters that had also created accounts.
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker was also among the first to get on Threads and in her very first post she indirectly addressed the politically fraught social media climate
Jennifer Lopez has posted regularly on Threads within just a few days of its launch
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, known to have had multiple spats with Musk himself, is now very active on Threads
Zuckerberg's foray onto Twitter's turf will not only be an affront to Musk's ego but also affect the value of the company.
Following Musk's acquisition, Twitter became a private company - and was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in November, meaning it cannot be valued according to market capitalization.
Fidelity Investments, however, estimated in May its own stake in the company had plummeted in value since October, implying Twitter was then worth just $15billion - a third of what Musk paid.
Daniel McCarthy, an assistant professor of marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School and a co-founder of Theta Equity Partners, said the woeful Fidelity valuation was likely driven in part by the fact Musk overpaid for Twitter.
'The marking to market of Twitter by Fidelity was likely driven by a combination of $44B being a high price for the acquisition, coupled with the severe decline in revenue,' he told DailyMail.com in an email.
While Musk may have brought Twitter closer to being profitable through aggressive cost-cutting, most readily cuttable costs have now been cut. That means if revenues drop any more than they have already, profits will be eaten into fast.
McCarthy suggested Twitter revenue is now down around 40 percent from $5.1billion in 2022 to around $3billion annualized. But Musk's costs, he says, are also down a whopping 45 percent, from around $5.5billion to $3billion.
'If Threads takes off, more individuals (like me) will spend more time on Threads than they will on Twitter. Naturally, this will drive a decline in Twitter ad exposures that advertisers could bid on, which would drive a further decline in ad revenue,' he wrote.
Gordon Ramsey and Shakira were among the first to hop on board. Shakira had 3.4million followers on Monday
Users can port their Instagram followers to Threads, so Ramsey had a million followers within days
Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, shared a screenshot to Twitter on Sunday of a chart suggesting that traffic on the platform was 'tanking'
'It does not appear that there is much more room for Musk to cut additional operating expenses, so this incremental loss of revenue could translate dollar-for-dollar into loss of profits.'
With legal action potentially on the way - along with a rumored cage fight between Zuckerberg and Musk - the founder of Facebook appears to be attempting to smooth thing over with Twitter execs of the past in Dorsey, who appeared unamused by the gesture.
Several flocked to the - no pun intended - thread to revel in that sentiment, with several sharing memes to do so.
One user joked: 'Don't accept it or he will copy your coffee cup collection.'
Another sarcastically advised: 'Accept it but don’t follow him back.'
Someone else, meanwhile, simply asked: 'Are you still deciding?!'
Source: Daily Mail
