This is interesting, BUT allow me to play devils advocate for a moment. There are plenty of chip design/fab companies the world over that we have never heard of. If I was attempting to create a groundbreaking product for something like crypto mining I would be in contact with multiple design firms at the same time, the first one to give me a working prototype that met the specs I had laid out gets the contract. Its possible that because flower couldn't get there chips done in time he went with another company.
Possible but highly improbable IMHO. Why then the CEO would not come out and say - we have nothing in common with Flower/Ensilica, we have a reliable supplier, you pre-orders are safe. I mean I can understand if not agree with the secrecy around hashlets, but there is no reason why they couldn't address the question of shipped Vaultbreakers by denying a well known rumor. Besides these things take time, a lot of it, and even the original timeline was highly optimistic, let alone having 500 Vaultbreakers a month early. I'm still fairly confident they don't and won't have them, not this year anyway.
Still wearing devils advocate hat:
Because josh has no clue what he is doing. His original business was providing wireless service to under serviced communities, IE out in the middle of nowhere. Designing/Building/Installing a wireless tower and running the backend servers to support those towers are nothing like crypto.
Its quite possible that josh looks guilty because he doesn't have the ability to express himself properly. He could be so nervous dealing with the public that he comes off like he does when he doesn't have anything to be nervous about.