Twitter to remove 1.5 billion inactive accounts: Elon Musk

The move follows Musk's confirmation in November that he will purge accounts that have not been active in the last 15 years when he wrote: "Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works and change what doesn't." on Nov. 9.

He also agreed with a post in October that suggested an account gets deleted if it has been inactive for more than a year.

Musk announced on Nov 30 that Twitter has begun removing spam accounts -- an issue he had strongly raised before buying Twitter for US$44 billion at the end of October.

Twitter's average monetisable daily active usage was 237.8 million in the second quarter, up 16.6 per cent compared to the same period last year, according to a financial results statement released on July 22.

"The increase was driven by ongoing product improvements and global conversation around current events," the statement said.

Since taking over Twitter, Musk has been making swift and controversial changes for the social media company, from ending remote work for staff to cutting half of its workforce.