Twitter, which was acquired last week by billionaire Elon Musk, planned to let go of a quarter of its workforce as a part of what was expected to be the first round of layoffs, The Washington Post reported on Monday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro, a long-time Musk legal representative, led the conversations about the job cuts, according to the report. 

Twitter had over 7,000 employees at the end of 2021, according to a regulatory filing, and a quarter of the headcount amounts to nearly 2,000 employees. 

Mr Musk had denied a New York Times report about laying off Twitter employees at a date earlier than November 1 to avoid stock grants due on the day. 

Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. 

Mr Musk had fired Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Finance Chief Ned Segal and Legal Affairs and Policy Chief Vijaya Gadde on completion of a six-month $44-billion buyout saga of the social media platform on Thursday.