Billionaire Elon musk has addressed the employees of Twitter for the first time, using a video call to answer questions about his planned $44 billion takeover bid

Musk conceded the social media company will need to cut its headcount, but revealed little more in the Q&A session he was 10 minutes late to.

The Tesla CEO says he wants to see the platform’s subscriber base grow to at least 1 billion, and went back on previous comments he made on the importance of advertising.

Musk believes advertisements will remain an important stream of revenue for the company despite previously saying Twitter should not ‘serve ads’.

He also used the chat to speak about the existence of aliens and other life forms… with a view Twitter should be used to help both help “civilisation and consciousness.”

Failing to offer an update on the deal closing, he continues to speak about Twitter’s bot and spam accounts and the need to learn more about this grey area before closing the deal.

When it comes to the number of staff working for Twitter, Musk warned “right now, the costs exceed revenue” and there needs to be some “rationalisation of headcount and expenses”.