> What made Github/MSFT stop funding Atom development when their CEO went on record to say they won't?
Because circumstances changed and it made no sense to continue to do this. Atom shrank as VSCode grew by leaps and bounds, there's no clear business case for continuing to develop a withering product.
> And why haven't they announced that was the case officially?
Why would they? Why go out of their way to print upsetting news (to some) in a 40pt headline, when the writing is already on the wall for anyone who cares to read it? i.e. what's the benefit to the company of doing this?
I think the better question for the Github CEO was "why did you ever promise to continue supporting Atom? You either knew this was not possible, or were making a promise you could not keep, either one is bad." And the answer to that is probably "to avoid creating a furor around cutting Atom off at the same time as the acquisition was announced." But yeah hearing him say that would be useful.