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Backed by the fact that 1 hour after my email, the exposure was closed and the company never replied back to me, it was only after I followed up they emailed all those claims.
Again, I never asked for anything, I even offered to delay my publication so they could notify people if that was their intent, where is the blackmail here?
Blackmail is when someone says "do $thing or else". That didn't happen here, implicitly or explicitly.
If you're saying the implicit blackmail was "don't be an asshole, or else I'll be unkind when I talk about you later to others", then all of us are always blackmailing one another with every conversation.
Are you suggesting that lacking understanding of something someone says, one's first reaction should be an asshole to that person, just in case they are trying to sell something?
I think both I and the author understand why the CEO responded as they did; it's because the CEO doesn't care about security, and when a security issue was raised, they viewed the reporter as a threat to the blanket of lies they wanted to use to brush the whole thing under the rug.
In light of that, I think the author's response was appropriate. A lesser response would be letting the company off the hook.