The blog post says maintainers have been hired, as well as the Blender blog post is months old, seems like this has been public knowledge for a while, but that it is just formally being announced now.
Edit: seems I am getting downvoted, but I searched dachary who has a financial interest in Gitea, and has posted about the company in the past, so he clearly has known about this for a while.
I wonder why he happens to not mention a conflict.
There was no mention of this anywhere prior to the blog post, including in private Discord channels. It has _not_ been public knowledge for a while.
What you said is false. I suspect that is why you're getting downvoted.
It's not, you can confirm what I said. Look at the link in the blog post that points to public mention of it months ago, as well as the user I replied to posts about the company to his personal site with excepts from the public matrix channel.
I'm active in open source and lots of chat happens in matrix, maybe your coworker missed it?
By not mentioning this major conflict brings your motives into suspicion.