NEW YORK (REUTERS) - Billionaire Elon Musk will speak to Twitter employees this week for the first time since launching his US$44 billion (S$61.4 billion) bid in April, a source said on Monday, citing an e-mail from Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal to staff.

The meeting is scheduled for Thursday (June 16), and Mr Musk will take questions directly from Twitter employees, the source added.

The news, first reported by Business Insider, comes after Twitter said last week that it anticipated a shareholder vote on the sale by early August.

A Twitter spokesman confirmed that Mr Musk would attend the company all-hands meeting this week.

Earlier this month, Mr Musk warned Twitter that he might walk away from his deal to acquire Twitter if it fails to provide the data on spam and fake accounts that he seeks.

Back in April, during an all-hands meeting with employees, Mr Agrawal was seen quelling employee anger where employees demanded answers to how managers planned to handle an anticipated mass exodus prompted by Mr Musk.