It was common knowledge in my circles back at the time of the acquisition, but that's been 20+ years ago now. I try to bring attention to it whenever I'm asked about using Lenovo gear.

I remember it being a pretty big deal when IBM spun off thinkpads to Lenovo, and then again when they were caught installing malware in the EFI on some of the entry level models.

I've avoided them since despite them being the favored laptop of most corporate and Linux users.