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

Elon Musk has denied a New York Times report that he plans to lay off Twitter workers before the start of next month to avoid having to make payouts.

Replying to a Twitter user asking about the report, he said: “This is false.”

Last week, Musk completed his $44bn (£37.9bn) takeover of the social media platform after months of legal wrangling.

The buyout saw the exit of the firm’s top bosses – including its chief executive, chairman and finance chief.

At the weekend, The New York Times reported that Musk had ordered major job cuts across Twitter’s workforce.

The newspaper said the layoffs would take place before 1 November, when workers were due to receive grants of shares in the company as a major part of their pay deals.

Some have voiced concerns that more lenient free speech policies would mean people banned for hate speech or disinformation may be allowed back to the platform.

Last week Mr Musk said that he doesn’t want the platform to become an echo chamber for hate and division. “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hell-scape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” he tweeted.

However after denying the New York Times job cuts report, Mr Musk tweeted a screen shot of a New York Times headline about him posting a link to a “site known to publish false news”.

The New York Times headline referred to a reply Mr Musk had posted, and then deleted, at the weekend to a tweet by former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

His reply contained a link to a conspiracy theory about an assault on Paul Pelosi, husband of US House speaker Nancy Pelosi.