Elon Musk told Twitter employees on Thursday that the company "needs to get healthy" financially and bring down costs, suggesting that job cuts are likely in store if his deal to buy the social media service goes through.

"Right now costs exceed revenue," Musk said when asked about the possibility of layoffs during an internal Q&A, according to employees who heard the remarks. "That's not a great situation."

The question of layoffs has been top of mind for Twitter's more than 7,000 employees since Musk first said he wanted to buy the company. Current CEO Parag Agrawal told staffers in an earlier meeting that layoffs weren't being planned "at this time." Though Musk didn't explicitly say if there would be job cuts Thursday, his comments suggest the odds are high.