Elon Musk accused Microsoft of using data from Twitter without permission to train its chatbot. Then he threatened to sue the company.

Microsoft retaliated by ending support for Twitter in its ad platform for search and social campaigns.

“They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time,” Musk tweeted.

Microsoft invested billions in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT technology, which Musk cofounded and according to a Semafor report, unsuccessfully tried to take control of the company. When that didn’t happen, he walked away and started his own company.

When someone criticized Musk’s decision to shift from open access to high API fees, he wrote: “I’m open to ideas, but ripping off the Twitter database, demonetizing it (removing ads) and then selling our data to others isn’t a winning solution.”

Musk is working on his own AI company called X.AI based in Nevada.

Microsoft also informed users that as of April 25, 2023, Smart Campaigns with Multi-platform will no longer support Twitter.

As of April 25, 2023, marketers will not have access to their Twitter account through Microsoft’s social management tool. Nor will they have the ability to create and manage drafts or Tweets, view past Tweets and engagement, and schedule Tweets.

Multi-platform is a Microsoft Advertising feature in Smart Campaigns.

It allows advertisers to manage search advertising and social media campaigns across platforms from one place. Multi-platform is free to use when setting up Smart Campaign. It operates on a pay-per-click model.

With Multi-platform, marketers can run search and social ads, interact with customers, analyze reports, create campaigns, automate ad content, optimize return on investments with artificial intelligence, leverage AI-powered campaign management, and connect ads with relevant searches.  

Microsoft generated only about 6% of the $198 billion in revenue last year from ads running through its platforms that create and manage ads, according to Insider Intelligence.

Working to change that, this year Microsoft redesigned and integrated generative AI across its platforms, including its search engine Bing and browser Edge.

Google, in comparison, accounted for nearly 30% of total digital ad spend in 2022, per Insider Intelligence.