Elon Musk told banks that agreed to help fund his $44bn (about R700bn) acquisition of Twitter that he could crack down on executive and board pay at the social media company in a push to slash costs, and would develop new ways to monetise tweets, three people familiar with the matter said.

Musk made the pitch to the lenders as he tried to secure debt for the buyout days after submitting his offer to Twitter on April 14, the sources said. His submission of bank commitments on April 21 were key to Twitter's board accepting his “best and final” offer...