Google is terrified of open source AI and the only thing the people in charge understand is how to manipulate people with money, they lack other ideas or methods. So yeah, that would explain it.
But as people who only understand money they give HF a pile of cash to hedge against a FOSS risk to the balance sheet. It’s cheap insurance. Same with Claude.
Actuary tables and bank statements is all they understand, there is no technical leadership at google, accounting took over and the company only makes sense if you understand all decisions are made by the CFO.