Musk for downloads: No choice, Twitter was losing $4 million a day.

The new Twitter owner, Elon Musk, has defended the decision to sack about half the company's workforce, saying he had no choice, as Twitter was losing more than $4m a day.

Musk insisted that commitment of the platform for modemation remained “ably unchanged”.

“In terms of reducing the Twitter workforce, unfortunately there is no solution when the company is losing over $4m a day. All who left were offered three months of pay after leaving work -- which is 50% more than required by law” -- wrote Musk on Twitter.

Just minutes before Musk's posts, the head of security and integrity on Twitter, Yoel Roth confirmed that layoffs had affected 50% of the company, including approximately 15% of the department of confidence and security.

Musk restored this, describing it as a “excellent summary”.