The official materials describe contribution reuse through a government process, not an unrestricted employer power to assign immigration status.
Investigate the actual procedure
Executive Order 14351 discusses the earlier holder abandoning status and a new person undergoing screening. Ask counsel how current implementation works before taking action. This guide does not prescribe abandonment, determine employment rights or guarantee that a replacement applicant qualifies merely because the original contribution exists.
Ask for the answer in a form that can be relied on later, meaning a written note identifying the current procedure, the official source for each step and the date of the advice. Hypothetical example: an employer is told by an intermediary that a replacement can be nominated by board resolution. A board resolution is an internal corporate act; it records what the company decided and evidences nothing about a government process.
What matters are the official materials and counsel written reading of them. Executive Order 14351 discusses the earlier holder abandoning status and a new person undergoing screening, which describes a sequence involving both individuals rather than an employer power to assign. Ask what each individual must personally do, what each personally risks, and what document would show a step had been completed.
Where no such document exists, treat the step as unconfirmed.