I don't think Swift's success is gated by Apple execs. If it's a tool developers value and the ecosystem brings it to other platforms, it will succeed there. Swift is just a programming language.
Apple is the primary driver of swift. There is literally no adoption of the language outside Apple for business purposes. Saying it's "just a programming language" is meaningless.
It's reached version 5.0 and still doesn't have stable support for linux or any support for windows.
It's reached version 5.0 and still doesn't have stable support for linux or any support for windows.