Tryptamine Excuse me? Are you seriously saying that Android as made by Google isn't a privacy hostile operating system, and that Google as a company isn't in the business of mining user data? Or why did you highlight that part? And yes, I do worry about hardware backdoors, and any kind of separate hidden CPU or TEE environment is the perfect place for that. Question, I honestly do not know, but does GrapheneOS control the TEE environment, or is that controlled by the bootloader on Pixel phones? I am not saying that there is a backdoor, but anything that reduces the likelihood means I am more well protected, so however much speculation it is, I care, because it is my security. And the thing about the security chip, that was absolute truth, but it wasn't Google's chip, so maybe, just maybe, Google is better and can be more trusted. I still put zero trust in hardware security modules. I make sure I have a strong disk encryption password that in itself by algorithmic hardness alone can withstand brute-force attempts.
And about the software kill switches, I have had one flip on me once, with pretty bad consequences. I was using iOS, so suit myself I guess. But I know they can flip unexpectedly. A hardware kill switch should, if implemented right, cut the power entirely. I still bought a Pixel phone and installed GrapheneOS, because I expect that to be most suited for my current threat model, despite not everything being ideal.
And to be clear, I have found no evidence of any NSA style backdoor on any device. No suspicious network traffic when monitoring with wireshark or anything. But better safe than sorry.
Anyway, you were the one who argued with me when I reported the VPN leak too, claiming it was my fault because I used "the wrong app", denying it is a problem with the kill switch. I honestly don't understand this hostile and defensive attitude, especially if you want to encourage new volunteers to join and more auditing of your system.