The press release says they've been working on this for a couple of years. It was not an overnight change.

Yep, it seems that the person you're replying to doesn't know that it usually takes longer to grant such licenses, GitHub got really lucky here (or the US have thinked about the prestige of having GitHub there).

Securing an embargo exemption is probably not something you do as a quick workaround to an issue making the rounds on social media.