It was studied by Jacques Tits (1964) who showed that it is almost simple, its derived subgroup 2F4(2)′ of index 2 being a new simple group, now called the Tits group.
The group 2F4(2) also occurs as a maximal subgroup of the Rudvalis group, as the point stabilizer of the rank-3 permutation action on 4060 = 1 + 1755 + 2304 points.
The Tits group is one of the simple N-groups, and was overlooked in John G. Thompson's first announcement of the classification of simple N-groups, as it had not been discovered at the time.
The Tits group was characterized in various ways by Parrott (1972, 1973) and Stroth (1980).
Wilson (1984) and Tchakerian (1986) independently found the 8 classes of maximal subgroups of the Tits group as follows: The Tits group can be defined in terms of generators and relations by where [a, b] is the commutator a−1b−1ab.