Given the scarce technical details provided by Bloomberg and demonstrated Bloomberg reporter’s lack of understanding on how hardware works, it’s entirely possible someone fooled Bloomberg. Bloomberg said it has 17 sources, but perhaps one source intentionally gave a false story, another described an unrelated attack, and the third merely commented on the technical possibility of a chip hack instead of its existence. Without much technical expertise, the Bloomberg reporter could not determine which of the sources are credible and relevant, but he surely knew which buzzwords are good for a story. So he created a sensational narrative that could attract as much attention as possible, based on selected information that helps the narrative.