Musk Twitter takeover: Billionaire denies report he plans to fire workers to avoid payouts

According to a New York Times source, Elon Musk plans to terminate Twitter staff before the start of the following month to avoid having to make payroll.

He responded, “This is wrong,” to a tweeter who asked about the report.

After months of legal wrangling, Musk ultimately completed the $44 billion (£37.9 billion) acquisition of the social networking giant last week.

After the takeover, all of the company’s top executives—including the chairman, chief financial officer, and chief executive—left.

Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that Mr. Musk had ordered massive job cuts throughout Twitter’s staff.

The publication reported that the layoffs would take place before November 1, when employees were expected to receive grants of company shares as a key part of their remuneration contracts.

Since the acquisition, Twitter users have been discussing how the social media site would evolve under Mr. Musk’s supervision.

Some individuals are worried that if free speech regulations are relaxed, those who were kicked from the site for using hate speech or deceptive information could return.

Last week, Mr. Musk said he didn’t want the platform to turn into a place for hatred and division.

However, after disputing the New York Times’ assertion about job losses, Mr. Musk tweeted a screenshot of a headline accusing him of posting a link to a “site known to promote false news.”

The New York Times headline referred to a retort that Elon Musk had posted over the weekend before deleting it in response to a tweet from former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Additionally, Mr. Musk polled his more than 112 million Twitter followers about whether they thought the short-form video app Vine should be revived.

Twitter bought the service in 2012 that lets users broadcast six-second looping videos.

Before the social media platform was abandoned, it had more than 200 million active users by the end of 2015.

Both the question of whether Twitter should have an edit button and the question of whether Mr. Musk should sell 10% of his Tesla stake have been polled in the past.