Because the other 8+ billion of us have known this for years, and have been screaming about how this is a really terrible thing.

I'd wager it's significantly less than even one billion people who know and do anything like that.

Uhh.. did they just figure this out now?

All the other salient points aside, I think this is an example of the interaction between the bubble effect (we here all know it, but it's hard to ascertain just how widespread that awareness is outside this corner of the net) and the misunderstanding of the way such big organs function.

The latter is particularly made worse by how Trump (and others, but I'm not gonna write a whole list) has desensitised us to the scandalous nature of "person with some measure of authority makes throwaway comments".

Big organisations and institutions being "slow" to work or comment such things is an unfortunate side-effect of the fact that they're supposed to put some diligence into their statements. There's probably a nice pile of reports and arguments that have been written, reviewed, refined, discarded, assembled, cross-referenced to support such a statement with not just evidence for that fact, but also for the negative implications that make it a human rights problem. They probably figured it out a while ago, but had to build a case before going public with their results.

Even if we assume the best intentions, the Chief couldn't responsibly "guess" or offer a forecast of where this was gonna go, because his job is to report on facts, not on probabilities*, and those facts have to be established, while all the other work of those organs also is still goiny on. In that light, his statement is tantamount to saying "those doomsayers were right and you should have listened".

Courts have the same issue: you and I and everyone else may know that some person is guilty, but due process demands that they be properly tried and have their guilt proven to a certain standard. That's slow. It's painful to watch. But even in the best circumstances, doing things properly takes time, and doing them quickly risks error.

All of that said, you're probably right that he wasn't in a rush to confirm that, just as courts tend to drag their feet. Corruption makes that issue of delay worse.

* Expressing concerns about potential issues is a little more complex, since it uses extant and studied patterns to show the danger of where a partial match might go, but there was hardly much precedent for a rushing tide of slop pouring into so many households at once to compare to until patterns started emerging that could be observed and matched and eventually coalesce into certainty.

If I were a ferengi, I would be loving this whole setup.

If.

I vote for this guy for president for two reasons.

1. This guy gets it

And 2) Look at my alternatives. We all know trump is going to be the 2028 candidate despite that not being legal. I'm at a point where I don't even think he's going to use corruption to change the law. I think he's just going to run, and nobody will do anything to stop it. As far as the democrats go, I don't know who they'll run, but I know they'll be worthless. Probably Tim Walz or some shit.

So yeah, I got nothing to lose and everything to gain by voting for this random guy who may not even be eligable to run for president due to not being American. But hey, laws won't exactly be the top priority in the 2028 election anyways.

Preface:
Sorry for the wall of text.
It's all just drunken rants, and I doubt any of it is meaningful.

If everyone on earth worth more than $5 million were suddenly killed and all their money/assets were redistributed to the public, you know what would happen?

THE WORLD WOULD BE A MUCH BETTER PLACE

Yes. Unfortunately such measures are blocked by both science and functional governments.
There is no way to place such stringent limits on anything. "Owning more than 2 dildos" is a silly law, because anything is a dildo if you are brave enough.
"Owning more that 5m is assets means you get killed" is a silly law, because a massive financial upheaval (suddenly having your dildo collection massively appreciate is value) would mean so many people killed or having to be revived (ie, when your £10m collection of dildos suddenly is valued at £2m... Very distressing).

I think it's more of a "you have won capitalism" tax.
10m per person + 2m per child. Or something like that.
That's the cap. Beyond that is taxed at 99%.
Earn 100million? You keep 1 million.
Higher taxes on extra homes and actual luxury goods and services (private jets etc). Have an EAT: Essentials Added Tax of 0% (or remove taxes on things like tampons, deodorant, toothpaste & brushes, body soap & shampoos, toilet paper, condoms.... Things that promote hygiene). Have a SAT (survival added tax) of like 5% on fresh veg, bread, meat, eggs and milk (things required to live). And have VAT (value added tax) of like 10% on things that ADD VALUE to the essential survival things (bread, ready meals, cookies etc). Then have an LAT (luxury added tax) of 20% on fancy things. And have an FAT (fatality added tax) of 50% on things like cigarettes, alcohol, fast food, sugar, processed foods... All the modern bullshit. Then an EAT (existential-threat added tax) for things like petrol, diesel, natural gas, methane, ethane etc.

did they just figure this out now? Because the other 8+ billion of us have known this for years, and have been screaming about how this is a really terrible thing. The entire population of earth has never been in agreement about anything before

Well, it takes actual studies and scientific proof to enact meaningful change.
While the billionaires can just pay for that change via lobbying.
Politicians are not specialists on anything. So they rely on specialist. And billionaires can serve up "specialists" in the right place at the right time to get their own opinion valued more than common sense and general opinion.
Billionaires can own entire "impartial councils", they can (do?) own the news cycle, they can saturate media with their opinion to the point that "scientists confirm Y, but public opinion goes against Y".
See the whole climate change denial and greenwashing, I think there is the same going on with "open source" Vs actual open source, the whole "AI is the future, AGI is here, don't lose the AI war" bullshit. Next up will be water, we are getting to the point where it's all about water (but probably not for citizens).

And yet, the requirements to refute all the bullshit require SO much more work and investment than is required to generate the bullshit.

I don't know what the solution is. When companies are "worth" more than countries, there is no way a country can compete. Even sectors of a country (IE "local councils").
They just get bought out. And all these bought-and-paid-for (previously) trusted sources become untrustworthy, but the evidence lags the actions making them untrustworthy... Of course society slowly gets dragged down to the worst of it.

Maybe that's the takeaway:
Nobody can predict everything. So the established and trustworthy things get corrupted faster than the corruption can be revealed in an indisputable way.
There is no way to prevent the corruption, it can't be predicted.