Elon Musk Says Twitter Has 2,300 Active Employees, Refutes Report of 75 Percent on Workers Being on Leave

Twitter has about 2,300 active employees, Elon Musk said in a Tweet on Saturday. CNBC on Friday reported that Twitter's full-time headcount has reduced to about 1,300 active, working employees, including fewer than 550 full-time engineers by title.

About 75 of the company's 1,300 employees are on leave including about 40 engineers, CNBC said, citing internal records.

"The note is incorrect. There are about 2300 active, working employees at Twitter," billionaire Musk tweeted in a response to a tweet quoting CNBC.

"There are still hundreds of employees working on trust & safety, along with several thousand contractors," Musk added.

Musk took over Twitter in October and swiftly moved through a number of product and organizational changes. The company rolled out Twitter-verified Blue check-mark as a paid service and also laid off about 50 percent staff.

Earlier this week, it was reported that Twitter plans to lay off 50 workers in the social media site's product division in the coming weeks.

The layoffs, which come six weeks after top boss Elon Musk reportedly told staff that there would not be further retrenchment, could reduce the company's headcount to under 2,000, according to the report.

Musk took over Twitter in October and swiftly moved through a number of product and organizational changes. The company rolled out Twitter-verified Blue check-mark as a paid service and also laid off about 50 percent staff. Musk had said in November that Twitter was facing "a massive drop in revenue" as advertisers dropped out.

Twitter's revenue for the fourth quarter fell about 35 percent to $1.025 billion (roughly Rs. 8300 crore), a top ad executive revealed at a staff meeting, online publication the Information reported on Wednesday.

© Thomson Reuters 2023