I think the "CEO pay should be cut for layoffs" comments come from a misunderstanding of how CEO pay differs between public companies and VC-backed companies.

A VC backed CEO is usually paid a lower salary than the average software developer. Their biggest pay is by owning a lot of equity that's on a standard vesting schedule. Cutting their salary would be entirely performative. And clawing back equity is difficult and only matters is the company does well.

A public company CEO is usually not the founder. They're compensated with stock bonuses (that can be almost immediately liquidated) based on performance, as well as a large salary.

I think forgoing a bonus when you're the CEO and doing layoffs would be great. Unfortunately, that goes against the interest of the CEO and investors