I would have fired this person as soon as humanly possible for basically (actually) telling customers of the company to go F themselves, and making horribly insensitive and inappropriate jokes at their expense. imho the point of this article seems to be to tell the story where big bad VMWare or the target of VMWare’s employee’s ire stomped on poor VMWare employee, but I think it makes the employee look bad. I would a…
OP does mention that they were with VMWare only by acquisition.
Do I think that OP should have done this? No. Do I think they deserve to be fired over this? No. This is the standard chastise them for being an idiot and get back to work.
The problem here was a high-ranking Federal bureaucrat (USAF Chief Software Officer) got his knickers in a twist and rattled VMWare management who should have told him to go pound sand.
And, personally, even though I don't find the OP sympathetic, I'm glad this story came out as the bureaucrat in question should absolutely be named and shamed so other companies won't capitulate to him being a snot. Anybody with skin that thin shouldn't be allowed any amount of power, ever.