SCOTUS has not issued a judgment in that case (McMahon v. New York). They merely granted the case and will hear it next term. The headlines you likely saw were commenting on how the court chose to deal with the preliminary injunction that was in place in the meantime. It's a major peeve of mine when those headlines make it sound like such an order is actually disposing of the case. In reality, the case is just starting.
Anyway, on the question of whether the chief of an organization can fire his or her own employees, the answer is usually "yes, of course, how could it be otherwise?" That's why it matters who the chief is.
Allowing it to go through until next term is fundamentally permitting it. (This is the entire point of injunctions; to prevent irreparable harm while the case is argued.) Many of these folks, once fired, are never coming back. Mission accomplished, even if SCOTUS says "ok we've finally decided that'd be wrong" sometime next year.
> Anyway, on the question of whether the chief of an organization can fire his or her own employees, the answer is usually "yes, of course, how could it be otherwise?" That's why it matters who the chief is.
The government is not a company. It has three coequal branches. The President is often not legally entitled to fire employees, let alone shutter entire agencies whose existence and function is mandated by law.
"In the 1970s, however, President Richard Nixon asserted the authority to act on his own to withhold funds or curtail programs he opposed. This assertion was challenged in the courts in a number of suits to compel the release of impounded funds or require the Administration to carry out statutory duties that would result in the expenditure of funds. Congress ultimately responded by enacting impoundment control legislation as Title X of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974."
Anyway, on the question of whether the chief of an organization can fire his or her own employees, the answer is usually "yes, of course, how could it be otherwise?" That's why it matters who the chief is.