Twitter had been losing money before Elon Musk’s $US44 billion ($65 billion) acquisition of the platform in October, but the deal left the company billions of dollars in debt. Musk then embarked on a cost-cutting exercise, firing thousands of staff and disconnecting company servers.

The Tesla chief executive’s management of Twitter has resulted in advertisers leaving the platform, denting the company’s bottom line at a time when a slowing global economy has triggered a broader advertising downturn.

After promising to honour the results of a poll where he asked the platform’s users whether he should step down, Musk said he would relinquish the role of chief executive once he had found a replacement.

Twitter no longer has a media representative in Australia, and Musk has not commented on the user issues.

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