Shortly before the official announcement of the end of LiMux, Microsoft's German headquarter moved to Munich [1]. It's also estimated to cost about 89 million € to return back to Windows [2 (german)], including 24 million € for "external consulting".
So, hypothetically of course, if Microsoft subtly let the new Mayor Dieter Reiter know that they will only build their new headquarter in Munich if Windows was to replace LiMux, then what about this could not be considered as Microsoft killing LiMux? Sure, they didn't directly pull the plug, but that's semantics.