Why does it amaze you? We ought to be overly negative towards rising ambitious hegemonies with bad track records, even if the negativity is irrationally aggressive.
> Tinfoil hat on... Maybe the CCP fucked him up somehow.
Yes, a billionaire CEO retiring and staying on the board of the company he started is much less outlandish than your "tinfoil hat" theory.
Unfortunately, most people don't care about the "plenty bad shit" going on in China as long as their cheap imports are flowing in. In a Cold War 2.0 scenario, it is absolutely necessary that China be made out to be not only worse than they are, but worse than they possibly can be.
That's my opinion. I'm in favor of any propaganda that causes friction in the rise of the Chinese hegemony.