Well.. that's exactly what happened to Solarwinds last year, didn't it?
Actually smarter than that - they got into the build system and added the malicious code in the build process so you couldn't see it in the repository.
Do you think it's that difficult for a state sponsored body to infiltrate into a commercial company?
Hacking into Nvidias corp network, infiltrating their git server, disabling security scans and then injecting a backdoor undetected in complex code?
In a process which is highly controlled due to it being a very central peace of software.
Very unrealistic.
It's easier to find or buy zero days in the wild for the same goal