Maybe they are safe from being laid off, though you never can tell [1]. But it does not mean they enjoy the tension, the demands, the disagreements, etc that likely crop up. At their position, they can afford to not put up with that, not hold onto the enviable salary, like many others doubtlessly and begrudgingly do.
Some time ago the "right thing" was social, when Google tried to pivot to a social media company with Circles or whatever; that didn't work out, but I don't recall people got laid off at the time for not working on that at the time.
[1]: https://nerdy.dev/ex-googler