Actually, it was also about the layoff itself, not just how it happened. At the beginning of the thread, I wasn't to shared details for legal reasons, but it became a NLRB case for union busting. See this article from The Register for more details https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/22/npm_fired_staff_uni...
That's a very common thing, laying people off in an insensitive manner. Lot's of companies (even big massive successful companies) do that all the time.
That doesn't make it right, but, whatever the reasons their board had for letting go of their CEO, laying people off in an insensitive manner is unlikely to be among them.