You've mentioned before you work in finance crunching numbers and not in product, so it's clear you don't understand why someone would call this a PR stunt.
PR stunt does not mean that they won't give you the $50, nor is it always a bad thing. PR stunt means it's advertising ... usually in good faith to promote awareness. In recent cases with Apple products, it seems it's after some sort of defect in their supply chain. For the cynics, this gives them a "I knew it" feeling. And for the people that don't follow Apple products, it usually builds some trust back in Apple for their "quality".