The Bloomberg article claimed Apple employees found the chip. So even if what you're saying is true, the article is at least wrong about how it was discovered,

The Bloomberg article claimed Apple employees found the chip. So even if what you're saying is true, the article is at least wrong about how it was discovered, and that casts the rest of it into doubt as well. Also my recollection is the article claimed Apple was talking to the FBI, not Apple was contracting with a 3rd party who talked to the FBI. Similarly regardless of whether Apple was talking to the FBI directly or was going through a 3rd party, both constitute Apple "being aware" of an FBI investigation. So this only works if Apple contracted a private 3rd party to audit their servers, the 3rd party found the chips, didn't tell Apple, and talked to the FBI all without informing Apple of the issue. This strikes me as extremely implausible. Also, I don't think I'd accept the claim that "Apple has never found" is telling the truth if it was a 3rd party that found it. Because if a 3rd party informs Apple, that report right there constitutes Apple finding it.