Documents from The Washington Post revealed previously undisclosed details about billionaire Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter for $44B.

When speaking to investors, Musk told them that he planned to ax nearly 75 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 workers – cutting them back to a skeleton crew of just over 2,000 people.

But significant cuts were coming anyway, even if Musk’s deal doesn’t close.

Twitter’s management planned to cut company payroll by about $800 million by the end of 2022. It would have meant letting go of around 25% of the current workforce.

While 3/4 of employees is a far cry from 1/4, it’s a sign of chaos as Twitter transitions in the next year, regardless of who’s in charge.

A data scientist once in charge of Twitter’s spam and health metrics said that Musk’s cuts are “unimaginable” and will put users at risk of hacks and exposure to offensive material like child pornography.

Scientist Edwin Chen told WaPo, “It would be a cascading effect where you’d have services going down and the people remaining not having the institutional knowledge to get them back up, and being completely demoralized and wanting to leave themselves.”

The deal between Twitter and Musk could close as early as next Friday.

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