Elon Musk says Twitter will try to rehire some of its laid-off staff, and that some of the people he fired 'shouldn't have been' cut

Elon Musk and his Twitter account.

Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images

• Twitter's workforce is about 90% smaller than when Elon Musk first took over in October.
• He told CNBC Twitter "simply did not have the time to figure out" a proper layoff strategy.
• Musk added that he would likely rehire some laid-off staff "if they're not too mad at us."

Elon Musk said Twitter will likely try to rehire some of the thousands of staff he laid off, during an interview with CNBC's David Faber.

In the six months since Musk's takeover, Twitter's head count has dropped 90%, Insider's Kali Hays reported. The majority of the 6,500 ex-staffers were laid off, but others either quit or were fired.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," Musk told CNBC. "So there's no question that some of the people who were let go probably shouldn't have been let go."

Musk also repeated a metaphor he first used last December, comparing Twitter to "a plane that's headed towards the ground at high speed with the engines on fire" due to its finances. 

That's because Twitter was due to have a negative cash flow of $3 billion in 2022. Half of that was from the bank loan debt for Musk's acquisition, he previously said.

Musk told CNBC that "we simply did not have the time to figure out" the layoff strategy because Twitter had to "get the run rate under control."

"With very little information we had to get the headcount expenses and the non-personnel expenses down to at least break even," he said. "If you do it fast, unfortunately there's going to be some babies thrown out."

"I think we absolutely need to hire people, and, if they're not too mad at us, probably rehire some of the people who were let go," he added.

On Tuesday, Axios first reported that Twitter's parent company had acquired Laskie, a staff recruitment tool.

And at Tesla, Musk sent a company-wide email Monday saying he must approve all new hires. It grew its head count by about 30,000 last year. 

Insider contacted Twitter for comment. The company responded with an automated message that didn't address the inquiry.

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