Didn't this whole thing start because Automattic was complaining that WPEngine wasn't contributing much to the Wordpress development but competing with them for free?
I feel like Wordpress is going down the same path as Elastic and other companies have done, make something, open source it and then make a fuss when other companies "misuse" their code? If you want that tight control over how others use your code, then maybe consider not picking an open source license?
If you are a party to this dispute, why on Earth would you comment publicly?
If I were an employee at a company being sued I wouldn't say anything related to it even without an order from legal because I wouldn't want to have to risk answering for it in the trial. Why dangle yourself out there as a target for the opposition's lawyers?
I haven't seen any comments from any WP Engine employees. They have an adult CEO, though, so I'm sure she told them not to comment on it.
If that claim is false, that's perjury.
I wouldn't take how this played out as evidence that WP Engine was opposed to making more significant contributions like sponsoring a real, independent foundation or even putting a significant portion of its revenue toward the project.