Reports indicate Elon Musk will begin his revamp of Twitter on Friday, with an expected cut of 50% of the workforce, and then on Monday he will implement a controversial plan to charge $8 per month for a Twitter Blue checkmark.

Reports have varied about how many jobs Musk planned to cut, with early reports indicating he told investors he planned to cut roughly 75% of Twitter’s 7,500 strong workforce. Following reports indicated he would cut far fewer jobs, with some reporting he would cut as few as 25% of the company’s jobs.

The cuts are part of an overhaul of the company designed to increase monetization and decrease overhead. It is expected many of the cuts will come from Twitter’s content moderation team, which would also further Musk’s professed intent to decrease censorship on the platform and increase the freedom of speech.

Musk’s plan to introduce a program called Twitter Blue, which would cost $8 per month and reward users with a blue checkmark of authenticity, as well as give them priority in replies, is seen as a dual pronged attempt to both raise funds for operating expenses, and thwart spam and bot accounts. It is believed spam and bot account operators will not be able to organize millions of unique payment details to cloak the inauthenticity of their accounts. Additionally, even if they tried, they would only monetize Twitter’s efforts to defeat them.

However some have pointed out Twitter only has 400,000 blue check marks at present. Even if all agreed to pay the $8, it is unlikely the $38.4 million raised per year would cover costs at the social media giant in any meaningful way.

Bloomberg is reporting the program would go live as soon as Monday, although accounts which already have a blue check mark would receive a grace period of a few months before being stripped of their blue check marks.

Musk is reportedly also looking to end Twitter’s work from home policies, reduce content moderation to promote free speech, reduce what Musk has indicated has been the overzealous application of suspensions and bans, and introduce a paid video feature, which some have likened to the OnlyFans platform.

Sources say on Friday, Twitter offices will be closed while affected employees will be notified of job cuts by email, and the remaining workforce will be advised that Musk wishes for them to work from Twitter’s offices going forward. Reports indicate laid off employees will be provided with 60 days of severance pay. Bloomberg is reporting the list of employees to lay off is being assembled based on how many lines of code individual employees have produced in the past month.

Since Musk took the helm, it has been reported he has limited staff access to content moderation tools ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Some are complaining they fear this will hamper Twitter staff’s ability to combat misinformation and hate-speech as the election approaches, as it is robbing them of the ability to meaningfully punish accounts or delete tweets from users who violate policies.

Most notably, Twitter’s Trust and Safety council has been stripped of its ability to alter or punish any accounts breaking the platform’s rules on content, including restrictions on misinformation, offensive speech, or hate speech. Bloomberg reported a source told them they are presently only able to penalize users for posts which would cause, “real-world harm.”

Presently only 15 Twitter employees have access to the “Agent Tools” dashboard which allow them to ban or suspend accounts. It is a significant reduction from the hundreds who had access to those tools prior to Musk’s takeover.

Musk has promised further changes to the platform will be forthcoming after the election.