London, 5 November 2022 (PA Media/dpa/MIA) — Twitter employees who lost their jobs have been offered a three month payoff, according to US tech billionaire and new owner Elon Musk, who said the company is losing more than $4 million a day. The social media company began widespread staff cuts around the world on Friday, with suggestions as many as half of its more than 7,500 staff could be axed. Its head of safety later said jobs cuts have affected about 15% of the trust and safety department, as opposed to approximately 50% of cuts company-wide. New owner Musk is thought to want to drastically reduce costs at the company after completing his $44-billion-dollar takeover of the platform last week, since tweeting "we need to pay the bills somehow." "Regarding Twitter's reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day," Musk said on Friday evening, adding: "Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance." The billionaire also tweeted a series of posts by head of safety Yoel Roth, which said: "Here are the facts about where Twitter's Trust & Safety and moderation capacity stands today. "While we said goodbye to incredibly talented friends and colleagues yesterday, our core moderation capabilities remain in place. "Yesterday's reduction in force affected approximately 15% of our Trust & Safety organisation (as opposed to approximately 50% cuts company-wide), with our front-line moderation staff experiencing the least impact. "Last week, for security reasons, we restricted access to our internal tools for some users, including some members of my team. "Most of the 2,000-plus content moderators working on front-line review were not impacted, and access will be fully restored in the coming days. "More than 80% of our incoming content moderation volume was completely unaffected by this access change. The daily volume of moderation actions we take stayed steady through this period." Musk, followed this with a tweet saying: "Again, to be crystal clear, Twitter's strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. "In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press." He had earlier accused "activist groups" of "pressuring" advertisers into leaving the social media giant and causing a drop in revenue. The Tesla owner also replied to posts and memes from users about advertising, in one saying: "Twitter will not censor accurate information about anything." Online safety groups and campaigners have expressed concerns about Musk's plans to allow more free speech on the site and reverse permanent bans given to controversial figures, including former US president Donald Trump. There have been reports that some advertisers have been concerned about the possibility of such figures returning and appearing alongside their adverts on the site. An internal email sent to staff on the job cuts on Friday said the action was "unfortunately necessary to ensure the company's success moving forward." Staff have been told that everyone received an email by 1600 GMT on Friday, with those who are affected by the cuts set to receive the message on their personal email address rather than the one associated with their work. Staff have since taken to Twitter to confirm they are leaving the company, with some revealing they have been logged out of their work laptops and internal messaging systems. Twitter employee Simon Balmain told Sky News: "Late last night we all received an email saying there is going to be a large reduction in headcount and the email stated that if we would be laid off, it would go to our personal email and if not to our work email. "And it was about an hour after that, this is in the early hours of the morning UK, like 2am, that I noticed my work laptop was remotely wiped and my email access and Slack access were both revoked. "And then I got in touch with a few colleagues, and it seemed a lot of people were seeing the same thing."