Sina Science and Technology news on November 14, Beijing time morning news, it is reported that a large number of Twitter contract workers found themselves suddenly fired over the weekend after losing access to Slack and other work systems, according to internal communications shared by full-time employees.

An estimated 4,400 of the company's 5,500 contract workers were reportedly laid off. But the exact number could not be confirmed.

Some of Twitter's contract workers come from places like India. Full-time employees familiar with the matter said they received no notice before the contract workers they worked with were fired.

Twitter has laid off its entire internal communications team, the employees said. They even joke that the media now act as the company's internal communicators.

The layoffs of contract workers mark the latest move by the social media platform to slim down. The company has cut about half of its workforce since it was acquired by Elon Musk on Oct. 28.

Neither Musk nor Twitter were immediately available for comment.

A day after Twitter laid off workers, the company's co-founder, Jack Dorsey, apologized last week for growing "too fast." Dorsey himself helped Musk with his controversial leveraged buyout of Twitter and put his own shares into the new holding company.

As of June 30, 2013, shortly before Twitter went public, the company had about 2,000 employees, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As of the end of last year, the company reported a total of about 7,500 full-time employees.

In announcing the layoffs on Nov. 4, Musk wrote, "Faced with our company losing more than $4 million a day, we have no choice but to reduce our workforce. Everyone leaves with three months 'compensation, which is 50 per cent more than the law requires."

When Musk took over Twitter, he told remaining employees that he had sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock to "save" the company. It is unclear whether Musk will continue to sell Tesla shares to pay off Twitter's debt.

He also told Twitter employees that bankruptcy is not out of the question for the social media company, given the economic downturn and the fact that advertisers have stopped or suspended advertising on Twitter because of the acquisition.