It doesn't make sense for them to proactively deny it. If it was government propaganda, why would they attack the Bloomberg story. They could just say we can't confirm it, which would leave the door open to it being true. Denying it is counterproductive if it was a planted propaganda piece.
It is a fascinating story, anything is still possible, but the momentum is starting to swing against Bloomberg.
An American U2 "weather research" plane is shot down over the USSR.
The US strongly denied that the U2 was a spy plane and produced "weather research" U2s in NASA livery and a story about how the pilot's oxygen equipment malfunctioned.
...the USSR had failed to mention that the U2 pilot (Gary Powers) was alive and well, and that the definitely-a-spy-plane was recovered mostly intact. Oops!
But I agree, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, just an idea.
It might very well be true however and it would raise flags for a lot of companies, not just Apple and Amazon, and it could very well be a 'reality check' for corporate America.
I happen to know a little bit about how the US does some of these things, moreover, a lot of it is public information, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if this story were essentially true and that there's a lot of lying involved.
But who knows, it's a really weird one.