According to a rare interview with the BBC on Tuesday, Elon Musk has laid off over 6,000 employees since taking over Twitter. The CEO stated that the social media platform now has only 1,500 employees, a decrease of approximately 80%. Musk explained that he had to take "drastic action" when he acquired the company because it was facing a negative cash flow situation of $3 billion. Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October 2021.
After he attempted to get out of the deal due to concerns over bot accounts, he overhauled the company by firing top executives, cutting jobs, and implementing new policies. Musk also pledged to change the label applied to the BBC from "government-funded" to "publicly-funded" after the BBC protested. Musk also commented on TikTok's US scrutiny, stating that he was generally against banning things.