Saved them money on licensing their existing font, so why didn't they just move to another cheaper or free font?
Loose programming analogy: The free replacements had a slightly different "API" (metrics) that would have required adjusting hundreds or thousands of "call sites" (media using the font), so instead they made their own "API-compatible" (metrically compatible) replacement that dropped straight in.
This is all covered in the documentary short about the font.