[bvv]

No he did not. The original paper is at

https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07702

This paper was not widely noticed back when it was written in July (both inside and outside the theoretical physics community) and still has not been accepted in a journal.

In fact, it is rather unfortunate but most of what Stephen Hawking did in his latter years has been highly speculative; perhaps food for thought for other experts, but not worth reporting about in the mainstream media since it is (in my opinion) very likely to be wrong.

I apologize for not debunking this paper with more detail but a scientist can spend a lifetime doing so... However I can make one falsifiable prediction (like a true physicist): the serious news media will not report on this.