Elon Musk reportedly ordered company-wide layoffs throughout Twitter

Elon Musk is beginning his tenure as the head of Twitter by planning to enact a series of drastic layoffs throughout the company, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Musk, known as the man behind tech ventures such as Tesla and SpaceX, took over the social media giant following the closing of a $44 billion deal to purchase the company. He immediately fired numerous top executives within Twitter's ranks, in a sign of a changing of the guard. It appears Musk is also looking to eliminate large masses of workers, however, with the Times reporting that he wants to do so by Nov. 1 in order to avoid paying out stock grants as part of an employee compensation deal.

Twitter currently has around 7,500 employees, but the exact scale of Musk's planned layoffs has not been determined, the Times said. One source within the company's inner circle told the Times, "I was told to expect somewhere around 50 percent of people will be laid off."

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The upcoming layoffs are one of a number of controversial moves the tech guru has pledged to make following his takeover of Twitter. Musk has said he wants the social media platform to become a larger bastion for "free speech," a move that has some cautioning against the potential rise of misinformation on the site.

Musk has pledged to set up a "content moderation council" to bring together "diverse views" on issues surrounding Twitter's user base.