Out of all of the places that people make pilgrimages to, Mecca is the most well known, and therefore commonly used to refer to a place that's popular for likeminded followers to visit. E.g:It's very common in Canada for marijuana enthusiasts to refer to Vancouver as the Mecca of pot in Canada. There's no negativity in that phrase at all.
They could have said that 'right to repair legislation will turn Nebraska into a hub for Hackers', but that's not what they said.
I don't believe mecca is an ambiguously charged word, nor do I see any evidence to support this claim. It's probably the most commonly used metaphor for a gathering place of like-minded individuals, and was the perfect choice in this context.
We're in trouble when carefully manufactured 'one-line public statements' come from a philosophical opponent via a phone call to a journalist.
Where is Apple itself publicly making this statement? All references in the article are second-hand.