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Elon Musk 'plans to cut 75 per cent of Twitter workforce'

Elon Musk plans to lay off most of Twitter’s workforce if and when he becomes owner of the social media company, according to a report Thursday by The Washington Post.

Musk has told prospective investors in his Twitter purchase that he plans to cut nearly 75 per cent of Twitter’s employee base of 7,500 workers, leaving the company with a skeleton crew, according to the report.

The newspaper cited documents and unnamed sources familiar with the deliberations.

READ MORE: Life sentence for 'gruesome' murder after man's body fed into woodchipper

Elon Musk is pulling out of his deal to buy Twitter.

San Francisco-based Twitter and a representative for Musk attorney Alex Spiro did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

While job cuts have been expected regardless of the sale, the magnitude of Musk's planned cuts are far more extreme than anything Twitter had planned.

Musk himself has alluded to the need to cull some of the company's staff in the past, but he hadn't given a specific number — at least not publicly.

"A 75 per cent headcount cut would indicate, at least out of the gates, stronger free cash flow and profitability, which would be attractive to investors looking to get in on the deal," said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

“That said, you can’t cut your way to growth."

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Elon Musk's Tesla has been issued with a subpoena from the SEC.

Ives added that such a drastic reduction in Twitter's workforce would likely set the company back years.

Already, experts, nonprofits and even Twitter's own staff have warned that pulling back investments on content moderation and data security could hurt Twitter and its users.

With as drastic a reduction as Musk may be planning, the platform could quickly become overrun with harmful content and spam — the latter of which the Tesla CEO himself has said he'll address if he becomes owner of the company.

After his initial $44 billion bid in April to buy Twitter, Musk backed out of the deal, contending Twitter misrepresented the number of fake “spam bot” accounts on its platform.

Twitter sued, and a Delaware judge has given both sides until October 28 to work out details.

Otherwise, there will be a trial in November.

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Man jailed for life over 'gruesome' woodchipper murder

All that was left of Bruce Saunders when his body was discovered in a woodchipper were his legs.

Five years later Gregory Lee Roser has been found guilty of what the victim's son called the "most gruesome and evil" murder.

Roser, 63, received a life sentence when he was found to have bludgeoned Saunders with a metal bar at a property north of Brisbane in November 2017.

READ MORE: Man accused of woodchipper murder evoked dead mum, court hears

Bruce Saunders

The body was then fed into the chipper with the assistance of another man, Peter Koenig.

"My dad does not deserve to be remembered as the woodchipper victim," Saunders' son Blake said in an impact victim statement read to the court.

"My dad was a kind, happy, hardworking, wonderful man."

At his five-week Brisbane Supreme Court trial, Roser did not deny that Saunders was murdered.

Roser conceded that he had "shamefully" assisted with disposing of the body in the chipper then lied about it, telling police it had been an industrial accident.

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"Peter Koenig (left), Greg Roser (centre) and Bruce Saunders (not pictured) were all in love it seems at least at some stage with Sharon Graham (right)" crown prosecutor David Meredith said.

However, Roser accused Koenig of killing Saunders while they were clearing trees at the Goomboorian property near Gympie.

After they began deliberating on Tuesday afternoon, the jury found Roser guilty on Friday morning with Saunders' family and friends in attendance.

Roser showed no emotion.

"He (Saunders) was kind and generous to a fault, that … probably became a fatal fault," Justice Martin Burns told Roser.

The disposal of Saunders' body was beyond the imagination of any decent human being, Justice Burns said.

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Sharon Graham, 61, and Gregory Lee Roser, 63, pleaded not guilty to the murder of Bruce Saunders in Brisbane.

"But you are not a decent human being, far from it," he told Roser.

The Crown alleged Sharon Graham asked her lovers Roser and Koenig to kill her ex-partner Saunders and make it look like an accident in a bid to claim his $750,000 life insurance.

Koenig claimed Roser repeatedly hit Saunders with the bar as they finished work at the property.

He told the court that he helped carry the body to the chipper because Roser had a bad back.

Koenig then fed Saunders into the machine, leaving the legs sticking out to make it look more like an accident.

Roser had pointed the finger at Koenig, who he claimed had Mafia connections and once boasted of pushing a man into a meat grinder.

Saunders was killed after becoming embroiled in a "love quadrangle", the court heard.

Graham was living with Saunders albeit in separate bedrooms and was in a relationship with Roser while also having "intimate relations" with Koenig.

Sharon Graham, 61, and Bruce Saunders, 54, whose body was found in a woodchipper in Brisbane in 2017.

They may have split but Mr Saunders was still "besotted" with Graham, the court heard, and had made out his will and life insurance policy in favour of her.

Roser said Graham had plotted for months to kill Saunders, asking him to carry out up to three different murder plans – at one stage borrowing Koenig's handgun – but he refused.

She eventually hatched an idea to make it look like an accident with a chipper, this time roping in both Koenig and Roser, the court heard.

Roser admitted Graham had procured him and that he lied about the death being an accident, even telling police that he tried to save Saunders who he claimed was "reckless" around the chipper.

Roser moved into Saunders' bedroom with Graham the night after his murder.

Graham, 61, and Roser had pleaded not guilty to murder before the former successfully applied for a separate trial.

Koenig pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder earlier this year.