Elon Musk says Twitter 'has had massive drop in revenue'

ANKARA

Billionaire Elon Musk said Friday Twitter has seen a major drop in revenue, accusing "activists groups" of pressuring advertisers.

"Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists," Musk wrote on his personal account.

"Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America," he added.

The tweet came days after a group of more than 40 civil rights and activist groups issued a letter addressing top advertisers on Twitter, demanding them cease all advertising if Musk undermines brand safety and community standards.

"We, the undersigned organizations, call on you to notify Musk and publicly commit that you will cease all advertising on Twitter globally if he follows through on his plans to undermine brand safety and community standards including gutting content moderation," said the letter.

"This means that Musk must not roll back the basic moderation practices Twitter already has on the books now and must commit to actually enforcing those rules," it added.

Major brands such as General Motors, General Mills, Volkswagen and Audi of America have paused advertising on Twitter amid marketing uncertainty since Musk bought the social media platform for $44 billion.

The world's richest person's latest statement also comes right after he informed Twitter employees Thursday in a company e-mail that said workers will receive a notice by 12 p.m. EDT (1600GMT) Friday, which will inform them about their future in the firm.

"Team, in an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday," said Musk in the e-mail, according to various outlets.

"If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email. If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email," it added.

Twitter has around 7,500 employees and it is unclear how many will be affected.

The layoff comes as ride-hailing company Lyft announced Thursday it plans to lay off 13% of its workforce, and global e-retail giant Amazon said it has paused hiring for its corporate positions due to a slowdown in the American economy and possible recession next year.