Before Musk finalised the US$44 billion acquisition of Twitter in late October 2022, the San Francisco-based company had about 7,500 employees, but that number has gone down to approximately 1,300 active employees, CNBC said on Friday.

Twitter now has fewer than 550 full-time engineers, and the trust and safety team includes fewer than 20 full-time employees.

The company also has around 1,400 non-working employees who are still being paid. In addition, about 75 of the company’s 1,300 employees are on leave, including 40 engineers, CNBC specified.

Musk has changed the company’s day-to-day operations, including the termination of Twitter executives who were responsible for the platform’s privacy, cybersecurity and censorship.

In December, The New York Times reported that Twitter had stopped paying rent for office space for several weeks to cut costs.