Tl;Dr is that matt mullenweg saw that other people were making money from free open source software, and his capitalism boner is trying to fuck everyone over.
He has control over both WPEngines competition and the non-profit Foundation, and is using his Foundation position to try extort his for-profit company's competition. Typical CEO behaviour.
That's not what this article says. Earliest application was March 5, 2024.
Palworld was released on Jan 18th, 2024, a month and a half beforehand.