Gelsinger would be shooting blind and in order to cut enough to force compliance he would ultimately be sabotaged as the entire workforce unites against him unless he had the ability to bring in a few thousand loyal soldiers to manage every unit. He’s got the much harder job of ferreting out deep corruption and incompetence that perniciously hides in corners protected by knowing whose buried what bodies. Rough job that he cannot possibly accomplish. Instead he’s probably trying to root out these toxic messes and quarantine them in safe environments where they can be productive enough to realize ROI but disempowered and segregated while he works on fixing the broken systems and teams that got Intel to this point. Maybe this layoff was in his back pocket waiting for the right time to cut the shit loose with cover or maybe he failed to realize that should have been his first order of business and this was a desperate move to stop the hemorrhaging and Intels books are going to be even worse two years out when the consequences of firing qualified staff begins to manifest.