Elon Musk has said his $44 billion purchase Twitter is losing cash because advertising has dropped by half.

Axar.az reports that in a reply to a tweet offering business advice, the billionaire tweeted on Saturday: ‘We’re still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.

‘Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else.’

Responding to a post yesterday suggesting a Reuters story about the drop in advertising was false, he wrote: ‘This article is negative, of course, but we did not see the increase in advertising revenue that was expected in June.