Money trumps loyalty (family, friendship). "We thank you for your service." It's unpleasant, but completely in line with what's happened to the internet over the last 20+ years. It has to look good for the IPO. The ones with the shares don't care what happens after that.
There's a common saying: "Nothing Personal It's Strictly Busines".
I am more inclined to believe this is "a cabal of toxic moderators have revealed what they are, and Reddit is rightly removing them from the project".
When loyalty is a facade to keep malevolent people in power, it is no virtue.
The CEO of Reddit watched an interview with Elon Musk and decided that it was time to cut back on staff to save money? \s
And, like most people dissing Musk on the Internet, he saw Musk cutting back on Twitter staff to save money and somehow understood from it that he needs to drive away unpaid volunteers that generate money, instead of, ya know, cutting back on actual employees, of which Reddit apparently has way more than it should.
Yes, nothing like getting rid of high value employees that work for free.
Yes, he said he was inspired by Musk's handling of Twitter...