These were almost definitely not even Elsevier employees. They were editors of an Elsevier journal, but likely were paid only a token amount for their work, and probably not even that.
The world of academic publishing is very strange, almost inconceivably so. The publishers push off most of the substantive work to unpaid academics (reviewers, editors, and of course the actual paper authors) but then charge thousands of dollars for the results. It is a wonder their profit margin is not 100%.
It's somewhat surprising to me that someone hasn't proposed a policy (for private universities) or legislation (for public ones) that require professors to be paid to review articles that are not open access.
Currently UC Berkeley is negotiating their elsevier subscription, if I were cal, I would put that sort of a policy on the table.
It's not just Berkeley, but the entire UC Library system including fairly large university campuses, making it one of the largest university libraries in the world.
The world of academic publishing is very strange, almost inconceivably so. The publishers push off most of the substantive work to unpaid academics (reviewers, editors, and of course the actual paper authors) but then charge thousands of dollars for the results. It is a wonder their profit margin is not 100%.