I remember discussions at the time where people predicted that this would certainly happen. If people “keep falling” for it, it’s not the same people. And Microsoft certainly wasn’t (and isn’t) a company you’d trust for such statements.
Satya got his own line of "maybe Microsoft's not evil anymore" press cycles out of it.
Yet some people did trust them for it.
But you’re right that it probably wasn’t the same people that got burned by 90s Microsoft.