We'd need to also see the money (income/revenue/profit) of these companies, and then see the ratio of employees to money. Musk saw that list and noticed that Twitter had the lowest ratio.

To get the ratio metric up, they have to increase income or reduce employees.

This rationale, given by Musk (and I imagine VC friends) is all outlined in the discovery documents of the twitter vs musk legal case.

edits, i dug it out and made it a top level comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33467305