I think every headline about layoffs and restructurings and companies shutting down are proof that some people do in fact get to fire whoever they want whenever they want.
Civilized companies either don’t exist or don’t follow that social contract because it has been replaced with a different contract: an at will employment agreement.
If people are safe whether employed or not then by all means fire at will. It's rude but not morally bankrupt in that case.
If you are skillfull and bring value to your employer why would the fire you and why would other employer won’t want you?
Layoffs are great. They weed out the unproductive ones.
The vast majority of most layoffs I've seen are either hastily thrown together hail marys or just done looking at how much money they need to cut and then look more or less 100% at compensation or something even more stupid. For companies of any considerable size, rare is the strategic layoff. What Elon did at Twitter is a perfect example of slashing for a number. Elon has not been around long enough to understand what's up or down at Twitter. He has a number in mind he wants to get down to and he just slashes until he gets there. Assuming there are substantial cuts that need to be made, Elon has no clue where he is slashing fat vs. bone, he hasn't been there long enough to know.
Most places at least require a hefty sum of rent up front to even get in somewhere else.
Then if you don't have a job, at least in the US, they recommend you get COBRA, so you don't have any gaps in your health insurance record. Because they decided that was bad. And COBRA is _expensive_. Again, not something you can afford if you are living paycheck to paycheck.
Maybe the team was just sh*t and expensive. They get rid of them, so they can hire better people at a better price. Which make a lot of sense now that many tech companies have big layoffs.