California is an at-will state, so they could have fired him without giving any reason.
This definitely reads like a jump-before-pushed scenario, though. A large company, like google, would have internal processes that it would follow prior to termination, simply because they would want to have all their bases covered against potential lawsuits. Given what we know about Elliot, he was almost certain on that track when he resigned. He was clearly acting well outside his responsibilities and was likely causing significant workplace conflict with his behaviour. He would have known he was on a disciplinary track, because they generally tell you about such things at the start.
Even if the subject of disciplinary action voluntarily leaves their job before an investigation is properly concluded, it's
not like those investigations just stop right there. They just make note of you quitting and then continue investigating through the trail you left behind at your old job (of which, your old employer will definitely have a lot to look through).
Here's a minor example from when I worked retail:
Employee A is an intolerable dickhead to staff, but management has historically let it slide because he's always gotten positive feedback from customers and sales numbers were always above average.
Employee B is a new hire who requests assistance from Employee A while he's talking to a customer. Employee A forgets he's in front of a customer and tells Employee B to fuck off. Employee B tells direct supervisor about this, but direct supervisor doesn't do anything because top employee. Customer leaves negative survey noting Employee A's unprofessional behaviour, which management does notice. They give Employee A a stern warning, but nothing changes because first offence.
Employee B is livid that no proper disciplinary action was taken because literally
everyone in the store hates Employee A for being a fuckwad and if anyone else did the same thing, they would've been fired on the spot. Employee B even notes other coworkers giving examples of named staff let go for much less in recent history prior to your hire.
Employee B files an anonymous HR tip on the corporate ethics portal. Now we have external third party independent of store drama investigating Employee A. Management notifies Employee A, and shockingly, Employee A quits by next week. Due to obligations of confidentiality among staff, no one discusses HR investigations as they're happening. But let's assume that for the rest of this story, this is what HR discovered:
As it would happen, Employee A was also ringing up tons of transactions under other peoples' sales numbers. You're supposed to log off from your register before passing it over to another sales rep, but obviously this doesn't happen as much as it should because of the pace of retail. This went well beyond simple "taking advantage of coworker neglect." He was actively using other peoples' numbers regularly to ring up "bad" sales (i.e. shitty recommendations that get refunded within a week) while only ringing up "good" sales under his number.
Employee A's usage of other peoples' numbers was documented as far back as the year prior when the electronic receipt records actually just stop. So for all we know, Employee A could've been doing this type of thing for much longer because he was there for years. So now, we have empirical evidence of a "top" employee actually being a dirty, unethical slimeball who has no regard for his own team.
While the obligations of confidentiality are still "technically" in effect, the reality of the situation at hand is that Employee A is more than likely gonna get tons of bad references if people actually start digging through his employment history.
