Pixar Fired 100 People on Elastigirl Letterhead. The Subtext Is Suffocating.
Pixar laid off over 100 employees using letterhead featuring Elastigirl — a character who symbolizes resilience and flexibility — to deliver cold termination notices. With an internal joke about achieving ‘AGI’ circulating alongside the cuts, the incident exposes a dark paradox: the studio that built its brand celebrating irreplaceable human creativity is now automating away the very people who created that magic, and using beloved childhood characters to soften the blow.