New Twitter boss Elon Musk on Friday announced that the micro-blogging platform has suffered a massive drop in revenue due to lost advertisers who cut back on using the platform, amid sweeping layoffs at the company. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO added that the fall in revenue comes due to activist groups 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. Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America," Musk tweeted.






The new Twitter chief did not elaborate on whether he held a particular activist group responsible for Twitter's "massive" revenue plunge. Musk is facing a mountain of criticism for several reasons and activists fear his emphasis on free speech will embolden extremist voices on Twitter. Musk’s decision of sweeping layoffs across the company began on Friday, after an internal memo on Thursday warned that job cuts are coming.


Dozens of Twitter employees posted on the platform that they had already been locked out of their company email accounts and being remotely logged out of laptops ahead of the planned layoff notification.


Meanwhile, A class-action lawsuit was filed against the micro-blogging platform over Musk's decision of mass layoffs at the company that starts today (November 4).


Twitter started telling employees by email on Friday about whether they have been laid off, temporarily closing its offices and preventing staff access, following a week of uncertainty about Twitter's future under the new boss, according to a report by news agency Reuters. Twitter said in an email to staff that it will inform its staffers by 9 am Pacific time on Friday (12 pm EDT/9:30 pm IST) about the job cuts.


Musk has announced and indicated plans to bring about drastic changes to and at Twitter, including charging $8 per month for the blue verification tick in front of a user's name that authenticates the individual or company on the social media platform.