It might be that the business had some delivery date for some product and really needed to manpower to do it. Once that manpower failed they renegotiated a new delivery date at a loss, and could make do with less employees until they hire more, so the employee's presence was not so urgent anymore, and, since they didn't deliver when necessary, were fired.
I see no hypocrisy here. The owner might be a scumbag for reaching that conclusion but they are no hypocrite for firing them.
Edit: Y'all seem quite pissed with my conditional read of the post, but sure as hell agreed with the other side since the most upvoted comment is calling the boss a hypocrite. Idk man, if you are going to entertain one interpretation of the story but refuse the other one, you are kind of a hypocrite.