This is the fake cause.

The real cause is that the employees run the company and they wanted him canceled.

He had turned the company around recently, in response to CNN's huge ratings drop and their own internal findings that it was due to CNN's perceived liberal bias and Covid scaremongering/authoritarianism.

He had actively moved CNN's reporting away from cheap shot reporting, opinionated bias and GOP/Trump bullying, towards being an objective producer of actual journalism. They really were doing good on reporting in the last year or two.

Yet, being the only non-bullying real source of journalism makes you a target for the hate-filled attack outlets for hire. Those weaponized media outlets had been working together to manipulate the public's perception on various topics, mentally capturing so much of the lower-info population in the recent years.

Those who sympathized with those manipulated perceptions included much of CNN's own employees, who had been trying to get Licht ousted for quite awhile.

All this during the very difficult economic times of a Democrat Administration, made for an insurmountable challenge.