Elon Musk blames activists for Twitter 'revenue drop'

Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, has blamed "activist groups pressuring advertisers" for a "massive drop in revenue" as the company makes sweeping job cuts in an effort to save money, BBC News reports.

The billionaire owner of Tesla tweeted that "activists" raising concerns about how Twitter is moderated are "trying to destroy free speech in America".

It came as Twitter made widespread job cuts around the world on Friday.

Reports suggested that thousands of staff lost their jobs.

Yoel Roth, the company's head of safety and integrity, appeared to confirm in a tweet thread that "approximately 50%" of Twitter's workforce had been cut company-wide.

He added that most of the 2,000+ content moderators "working on front-line review were not impacted" by the cuts.

Mr Musk posted his own comments, saying he was presented "no choice" over what he called Twitter's "reduction in force", as the company was losing $4m (£3.51m) a day.

He insisted that all those losing their jobs were offered three months of severance pay, "which is 50% more than legally required".

Addressing the topic of content moderation, he said Twitter's "strong commitment" remained "absolutely unchanged".

Online safety groups and campaigners have expressed concerns about Mr Musk's plans to relax content moderation and reverse permanent Twitter bans given to controversial figures, including former US president Donald Trump.

An internal email sent to staff earlier on Friday said the mass job cuts were "unfortunately necessary to ensure the company's success moving forward".