Report: Elon Musk to begin laying off Twitter employees by Friday

Billionaire Elon Musk will start laying off employees at Twitter, beginning this week, according to reports.

In a company-wide email message seen by the New York Times, Twitter workers were reportedly notified to expect layoffs by Friday.

"In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global work force," the message said. "We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company's success moving forward."

It is expected that somewhere around half of the company's workers are set to lose their jobs, the New York Times reported, citing an investor and "internal messages."

The exact number of employees that will lose their job was not clear.

Musk finalized his $44 billion purchase of the social platform on Oct. 27, before immediately firing Twitter's chief executive and other top leadership there.

When the email was sent out on Thursday regarding layoffs, workers were said to have posted heart emojis and salute emojis in Slack.