My guess is that the CEO needs a political or regulatory favor from a currently installed "Progressive" politician/administration and this is his marketing "mea culpa" to garner favor.

In the absence of cronyism as competitive and financial advantage, simple economic reality dictates that if the CEO pays a substantial number of employees more than the productive value of their labor as per the marketplace for long enough, he'll eventually do damage to his business sufficient for it to fail.

I guess we'll all have to wait and see...