Bill Gates jumps into ‘Twitter-killer’ Threads with a GIF, Zuckerberg reacts

Tech billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates jumped onto the Threads bandwagon with a GIF, minutes after Meta launched the app that bears a striking resemblance to Twitter.

“I'm excited to jump into @threadsapp,” Bill Gates wrote on Threads.

To this, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg replied, “Pretty good jump tbh.”

Threads, which is dubbed as ‘Twitter killer’, went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at 2300 GMT on Wednesday. The Meta-owned microblogging app has emerged as the biggest challenger yet to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a slew of changes in content moderation policy and verification process since the Tesla CEO took over the company last year.

More than 30 million people have downloaded Threads, Meta's rival to Twitter, within the first few hours of its launch, Zuckerberg said Thursday.

"Feels like the beginning of something special, but we've got a lot of work ahead to build the app," Zuckerberg wrote on his official Threads account Thursday.

Zuckerberg also took a jibe at Musk -- the pair are known to be bitter rivals -- with his first tweet in over a decade. Zuckerberg posted a Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme in an apparent reference to the similarities between Threads and Twitter.

Threads will run with no ads for now, but its release in Europe has been delayed over data privacy concerns.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told users that Threads was intended to build "an open and friendly platform for conversations."

"The best thing you can do if you want that too is be kind," he said.

Mosseri also said that Threads is currently an app-only platform and but they are working on its website.