There's no way "you" (the people that engage in these tactics) believe anyone is that gullible to not see what's happening. You either believe yourselves to be exceedingly clever or everyone else has the intelligence of toddler.
With the gumption some tech "leaders" display, maybe both.
If you have to say "technically it's not" 5x in a row to justify a position in a social context just short-circuit your brain and go do something else.
Writing this comment mostly to say - damn, I didn't think about it this way, but I guess "either believe yourselves to be exceedingly clever or everyone else has the intelligence of toddler" is indeed the mindset.
The only other alternative I can think of is "we all know it's BS, but do they have more money than us to spend on lawyers to call it out?" - which isn't much better TBH.