Crisis communications is a real field. Most companies aren't prepared for it in advance and do it poorly as a result, but there are specialist consultants who are good at getting it right (source: close friend who did this kind of work for many years - it is not a pretty business, and often involves significant human failings).

I don't mean to belittle the letter, but Jensen's PR firm undoubtedly helped with the letter and undoubtedly had advisors who specialize in this.

Owning a mistake is especially hard in the East Asian culture. It’s been a long time I have seen a public figure admitting his wrongdoings.

Indeed.

Anyone who believes he personally agonised over this alone in a darkened room is being rather naive.

Or, you know, you could be a stand up person and be genuinely contrite.

He's a big time CEO and his company is impacted by how well he handles it. So of course there are PR/crisis people around. They specialize in making psychopaths look human.

But leaders are where they are because they make good decisions - their character does matter. Calling in the image-fixer types to clean up your mistakes is easy mode.