I don’t think it ever says wholly owned. My understanding is that the three founders have donated their shares to the Foundation, but they didn’t own 100% of the company. Likely >50% but not 100%
Feels to me after reading the article they earnestly try to do their best to offer privacy enhancing alternatives and push back often. What percent of these requests do Meta, Google or Microsoft fight? Ratios like that matter
Proton is extremely transparent and said:
If you are breaking Swiss law, ProtonMail can be legally compelled to log your IP address as part of a Swiss criminal investigation. This obligation however does not extend to ProtonVPN (see VPN privacy policy here). Additional details can be found in our transparency report.