Disabling the owner of an Entra joined device removes it from Intune

When an Entra user is disabled, not deleted, the assigned device is removed from Intune. When this happens, the only options I see are local password and face login for that particular user, effectively making the machine unusable. I also cannot wipe or reset the machine remotely since it's been removed from MDM.

The devices are enrolled via Autopilot without user affinity. Primary users are set manually in Intune.

I've looked through all policies and have not found what could be triggering this. Device clean-up rules are not enabled in Intune.

I came across this article, but we are not deleting the user and others online aren't experiencing this.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/intunecustomersuccess/offboarding-users-from-microsoft-endpoint-manager-%E2%80%93-microsoft-intune/3260365

Any help would be appreciated.