Elon Musk reportedly wants to lay off 75% of Twitter employees

If Elon Musk buys Twitter, most of the company might soon be out of a job.

According to a new report by The Washington Post (via The Verge), Elon Musk has let loose some of the plans that he has for Twitter after he buys it. Twitter, which currently employs an estimated 7,500 people, could see its staff shrunk down by a staggering 75% to just 1,875.

While some Twitter employees might shrug this off by thinking Musk will once again try and come up with an excuse to bail on the deal as he did with the whole bots controversy, sources are saying that deal is actually now “moving forward in good faith.”

Musk has a deadline to close the purchase of Twitter by October 28th. In a sign the deal is proceeding, Twitter froze its employees’ equity awards, Bloomberg reported. Anonymous sources tell The Post that the deal is moving forward in good faith.

Musk isn’t the only one who wanted to cut staff

The report goes on to reveal that Twitter’s management was already planning to lay off as much as 25% of the company in order to cut costs. However, Musk’s moves, according to the former head of Twitter’s spam and health metrics, would be “unimaginable.”

Users would likely notice immediately — as Twitter is likely to experience more hacks, for instance. Musk plans to implement stack ranking, the practice famously ended at Microsoft in 2013 because it contributed to a bad culture, to shrink headcount.

Musk has until October 28th in order to close the deal. If he fails, Twitter and Musk will head to the Delaware Court of Chancery. Right now, Musk is still on the hook to pay the original offer price of $54.20 a share which equates to a $44 billion acquisition for a company whose share price has dropped as low as $32 in the last year.

We’re in the final stretch for Musk to pull off the acquisition without having to go to court. If he does, regardless of if it happens in or outside of a courtroom, Twitter is in for a wild ride.