I think it seems just right. Languages these days are either controlled by volunteers or megacorps. Because linux is about freedom and is not aligned with megacorps, I think they'd prefer a volunteer-driven language like Rust or C++ rather than the corporate ones.

C++ has been an industrial language from the early days, since it got adopted among C compiler vendors back in the 1980's.

I’m not sure you can argue that Rust and C++ have anything like a similar story around being volunteer oriented, given the number of places that have C++ compiler groups that contribute papers / implementations.

I'm not sure you can claim that Linux is about freedom. Linux is run by a bunch of corps and megacorps who are otherwise competing, not by volunteers.