I think it’s because they swallowed Intel’s 5g modem business. intel’s modems were miles behind the competition in 4g and their 5g modems were straight failures. I do remember the hilarious PR around it.

“hey I know it seems bad because all our products got cancelled and everyone we work with was let down, but it’s all because our modem is sooooo good we’re skipping the first chipset (which totally works and is done for reals) and moving the second chipset up by 6 months”

The Intel PR around their modems sounded like it was written by Trump.