Move fast and beat Musk: how Meta built Threads

A company in crisis went back to basics to deliver a viral hit. But can Adam Mosseri’s Twitter clone revive an ageing tech giant? Naomi Nix and Will Oremus hear the inside story

- Naomi Nix and Will Oremus

Adam Mosseri was on a family vacation in Italy last November when he learnt he’d have to go toe-to-toe with Elon Musk. The mercurial Musk had just taken over Twitter (recently rebranded as X). Amid the ensuing chaos, Mosseri’s boss at rival Meta smelled opportunity. 

CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives wanted to woo creators from Twitter to their social networks. Mosseri, who runs Instagram, paused his holiday to take Zuckerberg’s call. It was night-time in Italy, and Mosseri spoke softly to avoid waking his sleeping wife. The group discussed Twitter-like features they could add to existing apps, including Instagram.

Zuckerberg, however, had a different idea: “What if we went bigger?” By the time the call ended well after midnight, Mosseri had a mandate to build a standalone app to compete with Twitter – and a knot in his stomach.

“Oh God, we’ve got to figure this out, because [Zuckerberg is] very excited about this,” Mosseri recalls thinking. “Sometimes you can tell when he kind of gets his teeth into something.”

Just seven months later, Meta unveiled Threads, a project that has shocked even its creators with its instant success. Launched a week early to capitalise on Twitter’s high-profile stumbles, including Musk’s decision to cap the number of tweets users could view each day, Threads drew more than 100 million users in its first five days – making it, by some estimations, the most successful social media app launch of all time.