It's a LOAN of $1000 per employee, and you have to retain your employees for 180 days in order for the loan to be forgiven... do the math. I assume most employees make more than $2000 per year. The money is only "free" if you were going to stay open anyway.
but they WERE going to stay open anyways. This is literally free money. They burn 2.4M/year and recently raised 10M. They could stay open even without this free money. This money is a bonus, it doesn't fully pay for the burn but it does give them money despite them not being directly impacted.