Elon Musk threatens Microsoft with lawsuit over 'illegal use' of Twitter data

This Wednesday Twitter CEO Elon Musk threatened legal action against Microsoft for illegally using the social network's data to train its artificial intelligence.

The tycoon made the announcement in a tweet responding to the news that the software company will stop supporting Twitter in its advertising tools as of April 25, which will implies that Microsoft advertising customers will not be able to access their Twitter accounts from Smart Campaigns.

"They illegally trained using Twitter data. Lawsuit time," he wrote just below the news item.

This means that Microsoft mined tweets from users to help train its AI-powered applications.

Elon Musk was later asked by a reporter what Twitter's long-term plan was following the tech company's decision, to which the mogul responded that he was open to ideas and revealed Microsoft "demonetized" Twitter data by removing ads and then sold it to others.

"I'm open to ideas, but stealing Twitter's database, demonetizing it (removing ads) and then selling our data to others is not a winning solution," he shared.

Elon Musk's view on AI

The tycoon has been warning how dangerous artificial intelligence can be for humanity and shared that for several years he considered it important to regulate the technology.

Recently, the CEO of Twitter confessed that he had a meeting with former meeting with former President Barack Obama in 2015 in which they addressed precisely the issue of regulating artificial intelligence. Musk has made it clear that he believes AI should only be developed when there is certainty that the risks will be manageable.