X (formerly Twitter) employed approximately 1,800 people as of early 2026 — a 76% reduction from the 7,500-strong workforce that existed when Elon Musk acquired the company in October 2022 for $44 billion. This article covers X employee statistics for 2026, including current headcount, historical workforce data, salary breakdowns, layoff details, and hiring trends under the xAI umbrella.
X Employee Statistics 2026 — Key Highlights
X has roughly 1,800 employees in 2026, down from ~7,500 at the time of acquisition. The company cut approximately 6,000 workers — about 80% of its pre-acquisition staff — across multiple layoff rounds from late 2022 through 2023. Average annual pay for an X employee sits at $122,000 with a typical bonus of $16,000. X Corp reached a tentative $500 million settlement with former employees over denied severance in August 2025. Revenue per employee has tripled since the layoffs, with X generating an estimated $3.5 billion in 2025 revenue from a fraction of its former workforce.
How Many People Work at X in 2026?
Estimates for X’s 2026 headcount vary between 1,500 and 1,800 employees, depending on the source. Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal industry estimates place the figure at approximately 1,800. Wikipedia’s X Corp page lists roughly 1,500 as of August 2023, though some hiring occurred after that date. The workforce is heavily concentrated in engineering, with trust-and-safety, HR, and administrative functions cut disproportionately during the 2022–2023 restructuring.
By comparison, X’s headcount at the end of 2024 was approximately 2,840. The decline from that figure through 2025 and into 2026 reflects ongoing restructuring following xAI’s acquisition of X Corp in March 2025 for $33 billion and SpaceX’s subsequent acquisition of xAI in February 2026. For context on how other tech giants like Google manage their workforce, Alphabet reported 190,820 employees at year-end 2025.
X Employee Count by Year (2015–2026)
X’s workforce grew steadily from 2015 through 2021, peaking near 8,000. The October 2022 acquisition triggered the largest single-company workforce reduction in recent tech history. Employee counts slowly recovered in 2023 and 2024 before declining again under the xAI transition.
| Year | Employee Count | Year-over-Year Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 3,900 | — |
| 2016 | 3,583 | -8.1% |
| 2017 | 3,372 | -5.9% |
| 2018 | 3,900 | +15.7% |
| 2019 | 4,600 | +17.9% |
| 2020 | 5,500 | +19.6% |
| 2021 | 7,500 | +36.4% |
| 2022 (Pre-Acquisition) | 7,500 | 0% |
| 2022 (Post-Layoffs) | 1,560 | -79.2% |
| 2023 | 2,370 | +51.9% |
| 2024 | 2,840 | +19.8% |
| 2026 (Est.) | ~1,800 | -36.6% |
Source: Bloomberg, WSJ, Electroiq, SEC filings
X Employee Layoffs: The Full Timeline
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter closed on October 27, 2022. Within six months, roughly 6,000 employees lost their jobs. Musk confirmed the scale of cuts in a BBC interview in April 2023, stating the company had reduced to about 1,500 staff. Entire teams were eliminated, including those dedicated to trust and safety, human rights, accessibility, and content moderation.
The layoffs came in waves. The first round in early November 2022 cut about half the workforce — approximately 3,700 people. A second round in February 2023 removed at least 200 more. Voluntary resignations and smaller cuts continued through 2023. Musk stated the reductions were necessary to address a reported $3 billion negative cash flow. The pattern of large-scale tech layoffs spread across the industry: Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon collectively cut 165,269 jobs in 2022 and 263,180 in 2023. The broader future of work landscape has been reshaped by this wave of restructuring.
X Layoff Demographics
Layoff data showed uneven impacts across demographics. Women made up 63% of those terminated, compared to 48% of men. Workers aged 50 and older accounted for 60% of those let go. These disparities formed part of the legal claims brought against the company.
| Demographic Group | Layoff Rate |
|---|---|
| Women | 63% |
| Men | 48% |
| Employees aged 50+ | 60% of total layoffs |
Source: Court filings, Electroiq
X Employee Severance Lawsuit and $500 Million Settlement
Former Twitter employees Courtney McMillian and Ronald Cooper filed a class action lawsuit representing approximately 6,000 laid-off workers. The suit alleged that a 2019 severance plan guaranteed most employees two months of base pay plus one week per year of service. Senior employees like McMillian were entitled to six months of base salary. Twitter offered at most one month of severance, and many received nothing.
A California federal judge initially dismissed the case in July 2024, but the employees appealed to the Ninth Circuit with support from the U.S. Department of Labor. In August 2025, X Corp and the former employees reached a tentative settlement. The lawsuit had sought $500 million. Financial terms of the final agreement were not disclosed.
Where Did Laid-Off X Employees Go?
Data from workforce analytics platform Aura tracked where former Twitter employees landed. TikTok absorbed the largest share at 16%, followed by Reddit at 13% and Google at 12%. Other receiving companies included Meta, Spotify, Snap, and Pinterest. Many former employees moved into senior or executive-level positions at their new companies.
| Company | Share of Ex-Twitter Hires |
|---|---|
| TikTok | 16% |
| 13% | |
| 12% | |
| Meta, Spotify, Snap, Pinterest | Remaining share |
Source: Aura Workforce Analytics
The pattern of laid-off workers landing at competitors is common across the industry. TikTok’s own workforce data shows the company employs about 40,000 people globally in 2026, making it one of the beneficiaries of Musk-era departures.
X Employee Salaries in 2026
The average annual salary at X is approximately $122,000 with a typical bonus of $16,000, according to PayScale and Comparably data. Glassdoor reports a wider range based on 6,788 salary submissions: from $107,879 for administrative roles up to $460,475 for senior engineering managers. Software engineers at X earn a median total compensation of $218,000–$220,000, according to Levels.fyi, with the highest-paid software engineers pulling in up to $1.46 million annually when stock and bonuses are included.
| Role | Annual Salary Range |
|---|---|
| Average Employee | $122,000 + $16,000 bonus |
| Administrative Assistant | ~$107,879 |
| Software Engineer (Median Total Comp) | $218,000–$220,000 |
| Software Engineer (Top End) | Up to $1,460,000 |
| Senior Engineering Manager | Up to $460,475 |
| Corporate Development | $235,000–$330,000 |
Source: Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, PayScale (2026 data)
X and xAI are also posting new engineering roles with compensation between $180,000 and $440,000 per year plus equity for Grok-related positions. These figures put X’s engineering pay at or above market rate for Bay Area tech companies. For comparison, software engineers at Anthropic report total compensation between $300,000 and $490,000.
X Employee Department Breakdown
According to Unify’s workforce intelligence data, business management roles (strategy, partnerships, general management) make up the largest share of X’s workforce at 828 employees — roughly one-quarter of the total headcount tracked. Engineering follows at 722 employees. The remaining workforce is spread across sales, marketing, IT, and support functions.
The post-acquisition restructuring reduced trust-and-safety and HR/admin teams far more aggressively than engineering. Musk has publicly called for “hardcore software engineers” and the current hiring focus is almost entirely on technical talent. The remote work shift in tech has also affected how X structures its teams, with the company reversing its former work-from-anywhere policy early in the Musk era.
X Revenue Per Employee
X generated an estimated $2.7 billion in revenue in 2024 and approximately $3.5 billion in 2025, according to Bloomberg and WSJ estimates. With around 1,800 employees, that puts 2025 revenue per employee at roughly $1.94 million — triple what it was during the Twitter era. For context, Twitter generated $5.08 billion in 2021 with 7,500 employees, producing about $677,000 per worker.
Advertising still makes up 70–75% of total revenue. Subscriptions (including X Premium) contribute 12–15%, and data licensing accounts for 5–7%. Revenue remains well below the 2021 peak. Musk’s cost-cutting brought X to roughly breakeven on operating cash flow by mid-2025, though net income remains negative after servicing the ~$13 billion acquisition debt at about $1.2 billion annually. Companies like NVIDIA generate $5.14 million per employee, the highest ratio among major tech firms.
| Year | Revenue (Est.) | Employees | Revenue/Employee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $5.08B | 7,500 | $677,333 |
| 2022 | $4.40B | ~2,000 (avg) | $2,200,000 |
| 2023 | $2.70B | 2,370 | $1,139,240 |
| 2024 | $2.70B | 2,840 | $950,704 |
| 2025 (Est.) | $3.50B | ~1,800 | $1,944,444 |
Source: Bloomberg, WSJ, AutoTweet, Wikipedia
X Hiring Trends in 2026
X’s hiring in 2026 leans almost exclusively toward engineering and AI. After xAI acquired X Corp in March 2025, the combined entity began posting roles for software engineers working on Grok integration into the X platform. Job listings from late 2025 and early 2026 on the @XCareers account targeted Android and iOS engineers. Compensation for these roles ranges from $120,000 to $200,000+ in base salary, supplemented by equity and bonuses designed to compete with offers from Meta and Google.
xAI itself went through its own restructuring in September 2025, laying off 500 data annotators while shifting to specialist AI tutors in fields like STEM, finance, medicine, and safety. The company said it planned to expand its specialist tutor workforce by tenfold. In January 2026, xAI posted openings for native Hindi and Bengali speakers to train Grok for South Asian markets, part of a broader push covering Russian, Arabic, Mandarin, and Indonesian. The broader tech sector lost over 130,000 jobs in 2025, with AI adoption driving much of the restructuring, a trend consistent with the AI-driven changes in hiring patterns across the industry.
X Valuation and Ownership Changes
Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, funding the deal with roughly $13 billion in debt and $31 billion in equity and cash. By 2025, private investors including Fidelity had written down their X stakes by 30–50% from acquisition prices, placing estimated valuation between $30 billion and $40 billion.
In March 2025, Musk announced the sale of X to his AI company xAI in an all-stock deal valuing X at $33 billion. In February 2026, SpaceX acquired xAI, making X a subsidiary of SpaceX ahead of a planned IPO later in 2026. These ownership changes have further consolidated the workforce under a single Musk-controlled corporate structure. Only 4% of marketers considered X brand-safe in a 2024 Kantar study, a factor weighing on the company’s ad revenue recovery.
X vs Other Tech Companies: Employee Count Comparison
X’s ~1,800 employees make it one of the smallest workforces among major tech platforms. Amazon leads with 1,556,000 employees, followed by Microsoft at 228,000 and Alphabet at 190,820. Meta had 78,865 at year-end 2025. Even TikTok, with approximately 40,000 employees, operates with a workforce more than 20 times the size of X’s current team.
| Company | Employees (2025–2026) |
|---|---|
| Amazon | 1,556,000 |
| Microsoft | 228,000 |
| Alphabet (Google) | 190,820 |
| Meta | 78,865 |
| TikTok | ~40,000 |
| X (formerly Twitter) | ~1,800 |
Source: SEC filings, Bloomberg, PitchBook
FAQ
How many employees does X have in 2026?
X has approximately 1,800 employees as of 2026, according to Bloomberg and WSJ estimates. This is down from ~7,500 at the time of Elon Musk’s acquisition in October 2022.
How many employees did Elon Musk lay off at Twitter?
Musk laid off approximately 6,000 employees after acquiring Twitter, reducing the workforce by nearly 80%. Cuts happened across multiple rounds from November 2022 through mid-2023.
What is the average salary at X in 2026?
The average annual salary at X is $122,000 with a $16,000 bonus. Software engineers earn a median total compensation of $218,000–$220,000, with top engineers reaching $1.46 million.
Who owns X Corp in 2026?
X Corp is owned by SpaceX, which acquired xAI (X’s parent company) in February 2026. Elon Musk remains chairman and CTO. The ownership consolidation preceded a planned SpaceX IPO.
What is X’s revenue per employee?
X generates roughly $1.94 million in revenue per employee based on estimated 2025 revenue of $3.5 billion and approximately 1,800 staff — about triple the Twitter-era figure.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Corp.
https://www.autotweet.io/statistics/x-twitter-business-statistics
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Twitter-Salaries-E100569.htm
https://www.britannica.com/money/xAI
