Reddit's admins don't recognize that they have very few levers to control the mod teams. They don't pay them, they don't give them any special benefits or consideration, and they (clearly) don't even respect them either. All that's left is the stick of removal, and that's only as threatening as the person is committed to being a mod on a site that clearly views them as a disposable tool.
They've already replaced some mod teams with new people, and i suspect that'll continue, and likely cause enormous disruption as people discover being the mod of a large subreddit sucks and is very tedious, dull work that isn't actually fun at all.
Considering how much money reddit makes off the vast amount of free labor provided to the site you'd think they'd have more sense, but, here we are.