[Jabbles]

Do we have the email with the "ultimatum" in it? I think there's a world of difference between

"Do these things or I'm gone and taking my team with me"

and

"These things are so fundamental to my role as an ethical AI researcher that it's difficult to see myself doing this job without them"

IANAL, but I suspect a court would also interpret them differently.

And even so, Google likes to position itself as a nice employer, which listens to their employees' concerns. De-escalating the situation would have been nice - immediately terminating the concerned employee makes Google seem like another giant faceless emotionless multinational corporation (which it may well be).