So him possibly destroying a company when he was specifically told to give the prototype back to them, is just "oh well, no biggie"
After such an action, nobody will ever trust linus again, and for good reason.
Did he ever apologize even?
First, lets not confuse their business development, account managers and procurement with just the presenter on screen. Although Linus is owner, was CEO, still chief executive, that doesn't mean he can be involved in absolutely everything and was aware of handling that external communications. It was also shown in these last 2 videos what happened with the communication breakdowns.
Once it was known that thing was auctioned off, I think he did apologize on WAN show. But previously he also doubled down on their review stance.
I'm sure people will say "coincidence, think not", but I don't really have the information to conclude their intent fully. From their evidence, its clear that communication breakdown happened and thats on them to fix, but its something completely different to paint someone as an evil villain because of their visibility or current position.
Not to bring conspiracies into this but it's pretty well known that political leaders buy out media companies and other people to make it so their PR isnt destroyed by their actions.
Money sure does buy immunity
Eh, I'm not going to deny that this is how it works in some jurisdictions for sure.
I'm also sure none media outlet which is unbiased, free of any propaganda (even if it is copy-pasting anxiety-inducing gov statements) or stuff like that.
But I'm also not going to drag everyone which against my views into some kind of conspiracy.