Twitter source code leaked online months after third of workforce axed as Elon Musk issues company update

Parts of the source code that underpins Twitter’s social media platform has been leaked online in a major exposure of the troubled firm’s intellectual property – months after a third of its workforce was axed.

Twitter sent a copyright infringement notice to GitHub, an online collaboration platform for software developers where the code was posted, on Friday. The platform subsequently took down the code. It is believed it could have been public for many months.

Separately, Mr Musk told staff the company, which has cut a third of its workforce in the past six months, is now worth less than half the $44 billion (£36bn) he paid for it last year. However, he claimed it could be seen as an “inverse start-up” and claimed it could rocket in value in coming years.

In the request to take down the code, Twitter called on GitHub to provide information on who was behind the account that leaked the code, which had the handle FreeSpeechEnthusiast. GitHub posted the request from Twitter on its website.

Twitter has been in turmoil since the platform was taken over by Tesla head Elon Musk.

"GitHub does not generally comment on decisions to remove content,” a GitHub spokesperson said. “However, in the interest of transparency, we share every DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] takedown request publicly.”

The incident comes just days after Mr Musk said he would make the code that Twitter uses to recommend tweets publicly available by the end of this month. The move, he said, was to allow the code to be reviewed by anyone and scrutinised for possible flaws.

It is believed the current valuation of $20bn [£16.3bn] cited by Mr Musk is based on stock options offered to staff.

“Twitter is being reshaped rapidly,” Mr Musk wrote, adding that he sees “a clear, but difficult, path to a [more than] $250bn valuation”.

Late last year, Mr Musk fired the entire board of Twitter after his takeover, and laid off thousands of staff. He has also come under fire from some proposed changes to the social media network, including charging for the coveted blue tick.

Before completing his takeover, Mr Musk said in a message to advertisers he would not allow the platform to become a "free-for-all hellscape" despite previously describing himself as a "free speech absolutist".