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It is both true that it not impossible that a fork of React could be succesful; and that there is a reason React "would be impacted" by layoffs.

For the second, the question "Why would React be impacted by layoffs if it's open source", the answer is obviously: It would be impacted if people who were getting paid to work on it have been laid off. Seems straightforward. Bigger impact depending on number and roles of such people.

WebKit was forked from KHTML by huge company that employed people to work on it. And was later forked again into Blink by another huge company that employs people to work on it.

Most of those forks have big companies sponsoring the work.