I think that's reading too much into, what is fundamentally a very normal and common way of dealing with CEO turnover -- appoint a safe, business-friendly steward of a CEO, while you stabilize the crisis and decide who the real long-term leader should be.

The word "interim" was clearly used, and there's no hint in the PR statement about this being a permanent appointment. So I don't think it's reasonable to equate this to a clear doubling down of anything.

At the same time, a guy like Whitehurst is a safe, relatively unimpeachable medium term choice, not like someone you'd use for a truly short interim 30-90 days while you execute an executive search quickly. If you need him for 1-2 years of just don't rock the boat leadership, it'll probably work out fine for the company and the board would be satisfied.