Twitter has blamed a “trolling campaign” for a flurry of racist Tweets that flooded the social media platform in defiance of content rules after the takeover by Elon Musk.

Use of the n-word increased by almost 500 per cent over the previous average in the 12-hour period following Mr Musk’s acquisition, according to the Princeton-based Network Contagion Research Institute.

The rise in hate speech was also noticed by NBA star LeBron James, who tweeted his concerns.

Tweet from @KingJames

Twitter’s head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth blamed the influx of hate on “a small number of accounts” that posted “a ton of tweets that include slurs and other derogatory terms”.

He posted that more than 50,000 tweets had come from just 300 accounts which were mostly “inauthentic.”

“Let’s talk for a minute about slurs, hateful conduct, and trolling campaigns,” Mr Roth posted on a Twitter thread .

“Bottom line up front: Twitter’s policies haven’t changed. Hateful conduct has no place here. And we’re taking steps to put a stop to an organized effort to make people think we have.”

Elon Musk also tweeted that no changes have been made to Twitter’s content moderation policies yet.

Twitter job cuts

Meanwhile, Mr Musk has denied reports he is planning on firing more Twitter employees to avoid stock grants.

New York Times reported on Saturday that Mr Musk has ordered job cuts across the company, and that layoffs would take place before November 1, when employees were scheduled to receive stock grants as part of their compensation.

Citing unidentified people familiar with the matter, New York Times reported the cuts could begin as soon as Saturday.

According to media reports, Mr Musk has already fired top executives in an effort to avoid hefty severance payouts, while lining up other layoffs.

Mr Musk fired Twitter’s chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde on completion of a high-profile $US44 billion ($68 billion) buyout of the social media platform on Thursday, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

He had accused these executives of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.

According to research firm Equilar, the executives stood to receive separation payouts totalling about $US122 million ($189 million).

-with AAP