His profession has some of the widest opportunities for unfair financial rewards which result from ruthlessness alone, and this has traditionally often been executable within a typical office structure not materially different from the fair dealers who actually want everyone to win.

Even if he is working for the most benevolent & generous of corporations right now, the temptation to switch to a firm or org with a significant to dominant ruthlessness component will always be there.

He was just keeping up his chops.

Maybe they made a cost/benefit analysis along the lines of "If we mess with 10 potential partners we may lose one or two, but the gains of completely fucking one over make it completely worth it".

It's something I probably wouldn't do because the risk is too high, but I wouldn't be quick to assume the contract manager decides on his behavior based on feelings towards new companies.