I think that's actually closer to the mark than many realize. Awards are great when they are not directed at the company or it's rep in a negative manner as they show positive engagement and help the company with sales marketing. When awards and upvote/downvote counters are used to highlight that the users are having a negative experience then it hurts the platform image. Similarly to how YouTube removed the downvote tracker because their marketing team realized it hurt their sales revenue with business partners.

That would fit with the Musk comparisons

I was going to post, "Do they understand their user base?" but after reading your post, I believe they do.

That's where I'm putting my money. They don't want clearly shit dogshit admin posts to get poor awards

Most likely so.