‘False happiness of…’: Elon Musk's jibe at Instagram after Threads launch

More than 10 million people have signed up to Threads within seven hours of its launch, the company's CEO Zuckerberg announced Thursday.

Hours after the launch of Twitter’s strongest challenger yet - Threads - Elon Musk took a swipe at Instagram, the team behind Meta’s latest text-based app. Replying to a tweet showing a 2018 email - about Musk deleting Instagram app - sent to the Twitter owner’s advisor Juleanna Glover, he expressed his disapproval of the photo-video sharing platform.

Elon Musk wrote on Twitter, “It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram.” (REUTERS)

Read: On Threads' launch, Twitter user quips '… built using Ctrl+C+V'. Musk responds…

In a reference to mental health experts widely terming Instagram as a platform that encourages users to only post ‘flawless pictures’ that offer a distorted sense of reality, Musk quipped that it is better to face strangers on his own platform.

He wrote, “It is infinitely preferable to be attacked by strangers on Twitter, than indulge in the false happiness of hide-the-pain Instagram.”

The latest dig comes amid a long history of fierce rivalry between the tech titans. Taking a jab at Twitter, Meta had initially described Threads as “a platform that is sanely run”. In response, Musk said, “I’m sure Earth can’t wait to be exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options. At least it will be “sane”. Was worried there for a moment.” The two billionaires have even offered to wrestle it out in a cage fight.

In his first tweet in over a decade, Zuckerberg on Thursday posted a Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme in an apparent reference to the similarities between Threads and Twitter. Rolled out on Wednesday, Threads aims to capture users looking for an alternative to the social media platform rife with chaos since the takeover by Musk.

More than 10 million people have signed up to Threads within the first few hours of its launch, the company's CEO Zuckerberg announced.

Read: Meta's Threads app is live in India. How to sign up, create posts | Steps

Early celebrity users include chef Gordon Ramsay, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, and Hugh Jackman, as well as media outlets including The Washington Post and The Economist.

The app went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries and will run with no ads for now, but its release in Europe has been delayed over data privacy concerns. Meta has its legion of critics too, for its handling of personal data, the key to targeted ads that help rake in profits.

(With inputs from agencies)