That means Apple and Amazon are more credible in this case, unless there is some super secret NatSec exception to securities law that we don't know about.
[1] Specifically, SEC Rule 14a-9 in conjunction with Section 32(a) of the Exchange Act.
Did you not hear about the phonetapping business [0]? There is no way that a government-sponsored secret hardware backdoor would get any executives in trouble.
SEC rules are not a reasonable protection - or even consideration - when dealing with the US spying apparatus. If there was a hardware backdoor program:
(1) There would be a secret exemption to SEC rules.
(2) There would probably be a secret "we will end you" threat if the execs revealed details. Snowden & Assange would be mentioned.
(3) Even ignoring those two points, the rules would be ignored and changed later if there were any legal difficulties.
[0] https://www.cnet.com/news/senate-endorses-retroactive-fisa-i...
In the first article, Bloomberg quoted Joe Fitzpatrick. 5 days later [0] he said his quotes were taken out of context.
In the second article, Bloomberg quoted Yossi Appleboum, who on the same day the article broke suggested that he was misrepresented. [1]
Apple, Amazon, Homeland Security, and others have all said there was no evidence at all, and called for a retraction.
As it stands... Bloomberg were talking about something they didn't understand. There were and are some theoretical problems in hardware security. But the story as they broke it is completely false.
[0] https://risky.biz/RB517_feature/
[1] https://www.servethehome.com/yossi-appleboum-disagrees-bloom...