I think the pressures are from everywhere all the time. There's always a risk that something picks up enough steam to replace an OS even if it is a derivative or fork of the same OS. For C++ adoption, Linus gauged correctly that it's steam is limited and even directly taunting its supporters had low risk in a project that could challenge Linux because its set of choices over time has had many foot guns, where many developers would intentionally use what any user would consider a foot gun. As long as Linus didn't step in to define strong rules for how C++ would be used there was no likely challenger over any reasonable amount of time (for Linux/C). This is not true for rust.

The difference is that at least Google is actively deploying Rust-based Linux code in Android already.

And the big Linux foundation members have more influence than is publically known.

Linus was pretty clear about his views on working with vendors, etc, in his Autobiography so I'm not sure if/why there would be surprise.

Solaris, Java and C/C++ conpilers were all owned by Sun. I feel that is a situation without anyone even trying to maintain whatever separation some might expect from Linus.

That may actually make a little more sense.