First, Linux was never GNU - the GNU ecosystem has always been a significant part, but if you were obstinate enough, you could get away without using any GNU tools (which is even easier today).

Second, you give just two examples. A few years ago we had a trend to rewrite everything in Rust with these newer tools usually not being part of the GNU project. Sure, you can replace everything now. However, most GNU tools are here to stay for a long time especially in enterprise distros where backward compatibility is important.

So no, Linux has never been GNU, and whatever fluctuations we had over decades with innumerable fights like egcs vs gcc etc., the GNU ecosystem is and will long be part of Linux distros.