son, it is about bigger things and my son is an expendable cog in the wheel to avoid a rush on requests for increases for a larger group of people who are getting paid below market, or alternatively an attempt to make my son mad enough to quit abruptly and not add fuel to a moral fire that is already ongoing because they have had issues with talent retention recently, which is why my son negotiated the higher starting salary in the first place.

I don't believe the CEO is stupid enough to actually believe that any employee is gladly going to take a 20% pay cut and be happy about it in a hiring market, as soon as he made the decision to make the change in salary he would have to know that no employee is going to accept that and their trust and loyalty to leadership have just been irreparably damaged.