The growing trend of Corporate Brutalitarianism - performative cruelty for the sake of demonstrating the capacity for it to leadership and investors. If all obstacles to profit have to eventually be eliminated then you better be signalling that you're willing to kill the baby to make the quarter.

Ramping up cruelty serves the convenient secondary purpose of psychological layoffs - burning people out into quitting en masse (or providing opportunity to mark them Bad Leavers and retain shares) in preparation for the supposed AI productivity gains on the remainder.