This is the attitude of someone that has already decided to perpetuate the status quo, being reminded of the fact his position does not stand up well under public scrutiny. The conversation is impossible now because it always was. Or rather, it was highly unlikely to happen, even less likely to change anything, and only possible at all for the most hair-splitting of reasons.

I see this kind of rationalization up close so often I'm uncomfortable with how little it makes my blood boil anymore. A public revelation puts egg on someone's face, they bellyache that if the problem was brought to them properly they could have fixed it. It relies on two assumptions that for any instance of this at least one of is blatantly false. A) The exec wasn't aware of the issue already, and happy to keep it going so long as public doesn't find out and B) that the person who just went public not only could have somehow gotten a conversation with him in private, but would have been able to change his position.