Going to go out on a limb here, but isn't one of the generally understood justifications for exec pay being so high is that the buck stops with them?
2015 - Volkswagen executives came up with "a rogue engineer" managed to make every VW diesel in the US violate emissions standards, while faking it during emissions testing.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/volkswagen-pulls...
And I’m even willing to include the fake “X executive has decided to move on to newer and greater things and we wish him well” lie to save face for firing an executive as consequences. I’m referring to the straight up, we’re blaming a peon, my income stays the same or goes up no consequences