Yeah, you can terminate them with absolutely no reason, and then get sued. Read up on how employment laws actually work. There are all sorts of factors you aren't considering, which play into the legal realm at hand here. Factors like employee count. Yes, even in at-will states. You think that major corporations do PIPs and pay severances out of kindness?

In California, you sometimes have to announce layoffs. This strengthens a class action lawsuit that this is a layoff and not a termination for performance. There will be penalties associated with that.

You can simply say "We are terminating your employment." However, that generally means that you cannot demand back relocation, bonuses, stocks, etc. and you're going to have to cough up equivalent severance to everybody else--otherwise you're staring at a discrimination lawsuit.

> At will employment is a thing. You can terminate people with absolutely no reason if you want, most of the time.

In which case fire them with no reason. If however you waive that choice and offer a specific reason then you probably should make the chosen reason true unless you want to be sued for wrongful dismissal.

There are a host of laws regarding termination, even in at will states, especially for companies of Cloudflare's size.

Giving an invalid reason that is unsupported by facts is generally a strong place for a lawyer to assert "wrongful termination" and invoke those laws.

If you give a reason, it must be true. Otherwise it opens you up to "well, what was the real reason then?"

Rules for layoffs vary greatly from state to state.

America is a pretend country with pretend rights.