New Delhi, Jul 16 (IANS): Elon Musk, who started paying a select group of creators as promised, has admitted that Twitter is still in the red after a massive 50 per cent drop in advertising revenue and heavy debt from the past.

Twitter has reached all-time high in "device user seconds usage," and that almost all the advertisers who left have "either come back or they said they will come back."

Still, the company is financially weak as several advertisers are yet to return to the platform after ditching it post-Musk takeover.

“We’re still negative cash flow, due to a 50 per cent drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load,” Musk said in a tweet.

“Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he added.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO took over the micro-blogging platform in a $44 billion acquisition in October last year that included about $13 billion in debt.

In April, Musk told the BBC that “almost all” advertisers had resumed buying ads on Twitter.

A follower suggested Musk on increasing revenue: “You may never see that 50 per cent of traditional advertisements again. Charge people who have a following on a tiered level (some dollar per follower). People with most followers need/use this platform the most for their brand ambitions, but will never pay to advertise. $1 per 1,000 or a similar metric”.

It’s, however, still not clear how much Twitter paid creators in the first round of payments.