The new CEO didn't fire him, he basically gave him notice that they were hiring a new VP of marketing, and that he could be in the running, maybe with the help

The new CEO didn't fire him, he basically gave him notice that they were hiring a new VP of marketing, and that he could be in the running, maybe with the help of a coach. Then after he didn't get the job, he quit. It was a foreseeable sequence of events, from the point of view of the CEO, but he wasn't fired.