Twitter has lost almost half of its advertising revenue since it was bought by Elon Musk for $44bn (£33.6bn) last October, its owner has revealed.

He said the company had not seen the increase in sales that had been expected in June, but added that July was a "bit more promising".

Mr Musk sacked about half of Twitter's 7,500 staff when he took over in 2022 in an effort to cut costs.

Rival app Threads now has 150 million users, according to some estimates.

Its in-built connection to Instagram automatically gives the Meta-designed platform access to a potential two billion users.

Meanwhile, Twitter is struggling under a heavy debt load. Cash flow remains negative, Mr Musk said at the weekend, although the billionaire did not put a time frame on the 50% drop in ad revenue.

In a tweet he said: "Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else."

Lucy Coutts, investment director at JM Finn, told the BBC's Today programme she thought Mr Musk would be able to turn Twitter around "but it is just going to take longer".

"But unfortunately he has got $13bn of debt to pay by the end of July so we may see more pressure on the shares in Tesla if he has to sell more of his stake in that company."

Mr Musk is also the chief executive and majority shareholder of electric car-maker Tesla, which will report its latest quarterly financial results on Wednesday.