Lei Zhang in my opinion is basing his choice on an assumption. That assumption is that Intel will get it's act together and release a future version of SGX which is not vulnerable to the current attacks which render the current versions of SGX insecure. So yeah of course it's a bet on Intel, but I think iExec needs a backup plan because it's not wise to pin all bets in one company.

I even tend to agree that sooner or later Intel will get SGX right, but this will be in a future chip which isn't released yet. iExec will not be able to guarantee data privacy with current SGX in my opinion.