Gary Zhou 
Key Points
- 📌 Mark Zuckerberg criticized Elon Musk’s Twitter as falling short of its full potential.
- 📌 Threads, a platform by Meta, gained over 10 million users in just seven hours.
- 📌 Zuckerberg envisions Threads as a public conversations app with over a billion users.
- 📌 Zuckerberg believes keeping Threads friendly will be key to its success.
- 📌 Elon Musk responded to Threads’ launch, emphasizing the drawbacks of Instagram.
- 📌 Despite the rivalry, Zuckerberg took a lighthearted stance and acknowledged the similarities between Twitter and Threads.
- 📌 Threads is a challenger to Twitter, but previous alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky have not gained significant traction.
- 📌 Tesla and 16 Chinese automakers signed an agreement to end the EV price war and maintain fair competition.
- 📌 Tesla faced customer backlash and regulatory concerns in China due to the price war.
- 📌 The market expects the end of the price war to boost EV sales, with automakers relying on new models.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has shared some criticism of rival Elon Musk’s Twitter. Zuckerberg described Twitter as an unfriendly platform that is falling short of its full potential. The Meta CEO also noted that Threads could be a public conversations app with over a billion people on it.
“It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it,” Zuckerberg wrote when asked if he believed Threads would be “bigger than Twitter.”
“Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully, we will,” the Meta CEO added.
Zuckerberg’s comments come amidst the successful launch of Threads, which gained over 10 million users in just seven hours. The Meta CEO also hinted that Threads would be a kinder alternative to Twitter, which Zuckerberg noted could be key to reaching the newly-launched platform’s potential.
“The goal is to keep it friendly as it expands. I think it’s possible and will ultimately be the key to its success. That’s one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Elon Musk appears to have responded to the successful launch of Threads, responding to a Twitter post about his deletion of his Instagram account several years ago that “It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram.”
Despite his apparent challenge to Twitter and shade towards Musk, Zuckerberg appears to be taking a lighthearted stance about Threads’ rivalry with the Tesla CEO’s social media platform. This was hinted at when Zuckerberg posted on his Twitter page for the first time in over a decade. The Meta CEO posted the Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme, seemingly admitting to the similarities between Twitter and Threads.
Threads is a notable challenger to Twitter, though it is hardly the first. Following Musk’s turbulent takeover of Twitter last year, critics of the Tesla CEO promoted potential alternatives to the social media company. These include Mastodon, which was presented as the next big thing after Twitter, and Bluesky, which is founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Despite the hype, however, neither has really caught on as much. Within the two months following its launch, Bluesky saw 375,000 downloads from the Apple App Store. Mastodon’s downloads, on the other hand, have seen a 99% decline from their highs in November last year.
