WP_Query can’t exclude more than 1 author?

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You are right, it is not possible to pass an array with author IDs to exclude them. The reason is in wp-includes/query.php at line 2294 – 2298

if ( strpos($q['author'], '-') !== false ) {
  $eq = '!=';
  $andor="AND";
  $q['author'] = explode('-', $q['author']);
  $q['author'] = (string)absint($q['author'][1]); // this line select the first ID and only this ID
} else {
  $eq = '=';
  $andor="OR";
  }

You have to get all author IDs, then exclude the unwanted authors and request the posts from the remaining authors

// array for user IDs
$users   = array();

// roles to include
$roles   = array( 'author', 'editor', 'contributor', 'administrator', 'superadmin' );

// user IDs to exclude
$exclude = array( 2,3,5 );

// get all users
$_users = get_users();

foreach ( $_users as $user ) {

    // do not add the user ID if the users role does not match or the users ID is excluded
    if ( in_array( $user->ID, $exclude ) || ! in_array( $user->roles[0], $roles ) )
        continue;

    // add user
    array_push( $users, $user->ID );

}

$args = array('author=" . implode( ",', $users ); 
$newquery = WP_Query( $args );

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