Yeah that's not remotely true. Being a star performer doesn't protect you from layoffs. You can hit your KPIs and over perform and it won't prevent you from being on the chopping block.
Generally speaking, they absolutely do. Even in scenarios where an entire org is being cut, star performers will be reassigned to other areas of the company beforehand.
It may sound brash but it'd take either a major failure in management or a failure in reputation-building and visibility for a star performer to be cut during these types of layoffs. That's not to say that good or even great engineers aren't at risk, but you're not going to find "10x-ers" being let go.
I got laid off last week along with 1 more of my 5 teammates.
Let this be a reminder to all of us that we must, to some extent, always work toward making those 1-3 bullet points on our resume at our current position more and more attractive. Never just hang out. Hacky sack is only for lunch breaks, after work, and on the can.