An online auction of "surplus corporate office assets of Twitter" that lasted slightly more than 24 hours included a 3m-high neon light in the shape of Twitter's bird logo, which drew a winning bid of $40 000, according to Heritage Global Partners auction service.

Among the 631 lots were espresso machines, ergonomically correct desks, televisions, bicycle-powered charging stations, pizza ovens and a decorative planter shaped like the "@" sign.

Musk said in December that severe cost cuts at Twitter had repaired the company's dire finances as he set out to find a new CEO for his troubled social media platform.

The mercurial billionaire told a live chat forum at the time that without the changes, including firing over half of Twitter's employees, the company would have lost $3 billion a year.

'Cutting costs like crazy'

Musk said he had been "cutting costs like crazy" at the platform he bought for $44 billion.

Just weeks into his ownership of Twitter, Musk fired about half of its 7500-strong workforce, sparking concern that the company was insufficiently staffed to carry out content moderation and spooking governments and advertisers.

Musk said his strategy is to massively reduce costs while building up revenue, and that a new $8 subscription service called Twitter Blue would help with that goal.

Musk-led Twitter has been riven by chaos, with mass layoffs, the return of banned accounts and the suspension of journalists critical of the South African-born billionaire.

Musk's takeover also saw a surge in racist or hateful tweets, drawing in scrutiny from regulators and chasing away big advertisers, Twitter's main source of revenue.

© Agence France-Presse