Twitter will start laying off employees this Friday, the social network said in an email to workers, a week after it was acquired by entrepreneur Elon Musk.

"We will begin the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday [today]," Twitter said on Thursday in an email seen by AFP and quoted by Lusa.

The message indicated that all employees will receive information this morning, as soon as Twitter's office in California, in the western United States, opens, but did not specify how many people will be laid off.

"We recognize that several individuals who have made notable contributions to Twitter will be affected, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company's success in the future," the company told employees.

Hours earlier, the Financial Times (FT) had said that Musk intended to lay off up to half of Twitter's 7,500 employees, according to sources linked to the purchase of the digital company, as part of the planned cost-cutting.

As part of these plans, the billionaire intends to cut around 3,700 jobs from the digital company acquired for 44 billion dollars, sources close to the project said.

"The current dismissal process is a farce and a disgrace. Tesla's minions are making decisions about people they know nothing about except the number of lines of code produced. This is complete nonsense," Taylor Leese, director of an engineering team at Twitter, who said he had been fired, said on Sunday.

According to the British newspaper, Musk also intends to require face-to-face work in offices from Monday, reversing Twitter's current policy, which allows employees to work remotely.

The FT added that Musk has already left his mark on Twitter since finalizing the acquisition, asking employees to work full-time on selected projects.

At the end of last week, Musk reshuffled the team, firing executives including the head of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, while bringing a small group of trusted advisors into the company, including personal lawyer Alex Spiro.