> apparently a result of outrage by a high-ranking executive after he learned that the former AWS engineer not only was working for a competitor, but had the gumption to open source a technology that he developed here

Wait, he open-sourced code he worked on at Amazon, or he open-sourced code he worked on in his own time whilst happening to be employed by Amazon?

If the former, it's hardly surprising the executive was upset.

Edit: Or option 3, he open-sourced code he developed working for you. In which case the executive is being utterly irrational.