Elon Musk fires additional 200 people at Twitter, report says

Elon Musk has fired another 200 staff at Twitter including the executive behind the revamp of its paid-for premium service, according to a report.

According to the New York Times, Twitter sacked at least 200 employees from its 2,000-strong workforce on Saturday. The redundancies affected jobs including product managers, data scientists and engineers who ensure the site runs efficiently, the NYT reported.

Esther Crawford, the director of product management at Twitter who oversaw the introduction of charging for account verification, was reportedly among the employees affected.

Twitter Blue was relaunched again in December and, according to news site the Information, has 180,000 subscribers in the US compared with a global monthly user base of more than 250 million people. Musk has identified growth in subscription revenue as a key target for Twitter, which relied on advertising for the majority of its income prior to his takeover but has suffered a plunge in ad revenue because of issues including the impersonation problem.

Twitter has been contacted for comment.