> It's as if the CEO is purposefully being as belligerent as possible to rile people up.
The CEO is following the new leadership playbook, which you should recognize by now, as it's used by Musk, crypto leaders, Zuckerberg, and many more inside and outside of tech.
* Fundamentally it's just following the social (media) trend: Demonstrate brazen, over-the-top arrogance, disregard for consequences, and no empathy. I'm sure people recognize that pattern.
* Applied to CEO roles, it means publicly demonstrating contempt toward groups of people who are (individually) weaker than you, including employees, customers, protestors, etc. And it means disregard for consequences, such as Musk's actions when bidding $40 billion for Twitter, and afterward; or much of what has happened in crypto. It demonstrates your power, demonstrates their powerlessness (if they capitulate), and makes you look like you have extreme confidence and little empathy - which is very trendy now, of course. Disregard for consequences works until they occur. It's basic con-person tactics, the most obvious bad sales techniques.
* When challenged, act more aggressively or with more contempt. Double down.
* Play the victim and characterize those who oppose you as violent threats - which again shows disinterest and contempt for them and their arguments. One remarkable place you can see it is some US Supreme Court justices - it's such a powerful trend in 'leadership' that these people with untouchable lifetime positions even do it. (In case you missed it, Reddit's CEO used this technique.)
These 'leaders' protray themselves as brilliant, innovative, and highly capable, and people assume they must be - after all, they run these big companies. They are just corrupt and swept up in the latest fashion. Power corrupts, no surprise.
The sad part is that I see many on the other side of these issues actually believe this crap - they believe they are powerless and unilaterally disarm, as if the leaders are using the Force when they say, 'you have no power' - 'Oh, I guess I have no power' and they despair. (And then they tell everyone else the same.)
At the cost of a little faith in demoracy (write large - the power of individuals working together), they hold all the power. Our ancestors who in the same way built much of the freedom and society we have now, must be amazed. We just give it all away. The worst of our society haven't given it away - look at Bud Light. Reddit should be toast, or at least the CEO. People just wake up and act.