That's not how humans work in the real world at all. They don't just follow orders and do what they are told.

There has been a huge amount of entryism in the moderation industry from particular political groups to make sure they are the ones with their fingers on the button. Twitter in Ireland had to have a clear out of trans mods a couple of years ago after they were caught abusing their power, long before Elon was interested. But the rot in the US had gone too deep for it to make a difference. You can see how much was being done unofficially by the number of accounts which suddenly reappeared on twitter just when the take over was tabled. Those people banning large numbers of accounts knew their work was going to be checked and got busy setting it straight before they got caught. If it was just what they were told to do they wouldn't have bothered.