the conduct

In 2012, Chris Kubasik was president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin, which makes fighter jets and various other things that governments purchase when they would prefer to make a point from a significant distance. He was expected to become its next chief executive. The board of directors learned about a personal relationship he had developed with a subordinate employee. He left the company. He did not become CEO of Lockheed Martin.

He became CEO of L3Harris Technologies instead. L3Harris is also a defense contractor. He ran it for several years.

On August 17, 2026, L3Harris announced it was terminating Chris Kubasik as chief executive, effective immediately, and naming Sam Mehta as his replacement. The announced reason was a "conduct violation." Semafor subsequently reported that the violation involved a relationship with a subordinate.

Lockheed Martin removed him for a relationship with a subordinate. L3Harris removed him for a relationship with a subordinate. These were different companies, different subordinates, and fourteen years apart. The structure was the same.

L3Harris employs approximately 47,000 people. As chief executive, Kubasik was above all of them in the organizational hierarchy. (The word "subordinate" is doing significant work in this situation. So is the word "above.") The board named a replacement effective immediately, which is faster than 2012, when the transition took slightly longer, possibly because the replacement incoming in 2012 was also Chris Kubasik.

The press releases from both events did not acknowledge each other. This is consistent with how press releases work. A press release about a conduct violation at a defense contractor does not typically reference a previous press release about a conduct violation at a different defense contractor. The author of the second press release may or may not have read the first one. No one has asked.

L3Harris has annual revenue of approximately $21 billion and works on systems for the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and allied governments. Its CEO was responsible for conducting the operations of the company. The board has named a successor. The board has not announced what additional review procedures, if any, it applied when evaluating the qualifications of its previous CEO, given that the previous CEO's previous employer had released the previous CEO for the same category of violation.

The announcement called it a "conduct violation." He was the chief executive. He was, in that capacity, conducting things. One of the things he conducted was a violation.