Exactly. So the company keeps the guy everyone hates after laying off people that get along. The next people to leave the company are the ones disgusted by the move.
Depends on the company. I've seen the opposite case were such a person was let go, much to everybody's relief. Some people had to clean up his mess, which was genius in the sense that it worked flawlessly, but nobody else could maintain it, so he had locked in a minimal bus factor. Which makes such a move harder to execute, but the earlier the better.