I heard it from a couple of very close friends who are active in the IC business community. They’re total IA hoops junkies who talk to a lot of people in the IC area by virtue of their business interests.
It’s the type of thing that they would had heard it from a contact who heard it first hand from someone associated with the program - might even be second or third hand. Hardly a rock solid source directly within the program. One of them did tell me these discussions and possibility has some real legs to it.
They’ve been right more often and earlier than not but they’ve certainly been wrong before too. Heck, these things fall through even if it is 100% accurate at this point.
Like I said in my initial post; a rumor, might not be true (or materialize), take it FWIW.