Elon Musk may fire 75% of employees, Twitter says no layoff plans

Billionaire Elon Musk had planned to get rid of nearly 75% of Twitter's 7,500 workers, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing interviews and documents.

Musk, whose $44 billion purchase of the social network is set to close by Oct. 28, would reduce Twitter's staff to just over 2,000 people, compared with the 7,500 it currently employs, the Post said, citing documents and people familiar with the plans.

However, Twitter Inc. told that there haven’t been plans for companywide layoffs.

Human resources staff at the social media company have told employees that they were not planning for mass layoffs, but documents showed extensive plans to push out staff and cut down on infrastructure costs were already in place before Musk offered to buy the company, the Washington Post reported.

Twitter General Counsel Sean Edgett said, “We do not have any confirmation of the buyer's plans following close and recommend not following rumors or leaked documents but rather wait for facts from us and the buyer directly.”

Musk had tried to walk away from the deal to buy Twitter in May alleging the company understated the number of bot and spam accounts on the social media platform, which started a series of lawsuits between the two parties.

Earlier this month, Musk reversed course and said he will proceed with the deal on original terms.