Yeah, don't jump right in and try to look smarter than them. Give them the opportunity (time) to look bad on their own with no answer. OTOH, helping them save face is also a good way to go if that's someone you want to work with.

Yeah, that kind of pause + coming in with the answer, is also nice because it can serve a dual purpose. It allows you to be both bad cop and good cop, all in one: you created some leverage over your boss by publicly showing the execs that boss doesn't know what they're talking about but you do, and you also helped save them from further embarrassment.

Depending on future scenarios, you can play up either side of the interpretation. It's a nice quality of really useful political moves that they can flex and can be reused for multiple purposes (kind of like... good extensible/reusable software design).