well they didn't really die on the hill. the NYT headline is still "OpenAI says it has cracked one of math's millennium problems" and the whole article doesn't mention this controversy. Normies don't know what NS is and don't care, they'll just see "wow OpenAI is the best I guess"
What a terrible look for OpenAI to die on such a tiny hill right there. I wonder whether Anthropic would have made the same requirement.