Musk plans to cut nearly 75 percent of Twitter’s workforce

Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter appear to include slashing the company’s headcount by roughly 75% assuming the billionaire closes the deal to buy Twitter. The Washington Post reported on Oct. 20 that Musk plans to cut Twitter’s staff from 7,500 workers to 2,000, far more than previous expectations. Musk is expected to close his acquisition of the social media company for $44 billion by October 28.

Many of Twitter workers already knew they were likely to get fired. A series of text messages between Musk and investors revealed during September court proceedings floated reducing Twitter’s staff. On April 15, Musk wrote that he saw “insane potential for improvement” by slashing headcount, although he did not mention the toll this might take on Twitter’s performance or morale. “My biggest concern is headcount and expense growth,” Musk wrote. “Twitter has ~3x the headcount per unit of revenue of other social media companies, which is very unhealthy in my view.”