Yup, this is about reasserting the boss-over-worker structures. The workers were getting to uppity, expecting things like actual work-life balance.
Which of these large companies would you say have a poor work-life balance on average? Google, Facebook, Adobe, Microsoft, and others have reputations as rest-and-vest retirement homes. I've heard Netflix can be challenging, along with some parts of Apple, but nothing like startups, investment banking, or big law.
Twitter before Elon was more like "rest" since they were vesting garbage, but he's trying to morph them into Tesla, which does have a terrible reputation for balance.
I have heard the AI and other non-FB/IG parts of Meta are pretty grindy-but-worth-it though.
When you work in Investment banking you are not expected to get 3 call at 3am every night including weekend and have to wake up get a coffee and work for 3+ hours to fix the problem the intern or idiot from another team (not your team) caused.
in Investment banking you can take a 2 week vacation without the whole company catching fire.