[CSB]

In low earth orbit everything larger than a tennis ball is tracked by us, Russians and the Chinese, among others (including amateurs). If it had made it to orbit, there would be no need to bluff.

Unlike most other companies, SpaceX does not believe in pyrotechnic charges for stage separation and release of the payload from the adaptor that forms the interconnect/disconnect between the space vehicle and the upper stage.

That adds weight, but it reduces the dynamics (shock waves and overpressures) that could reduce the ability to reuse the launch vehicle.

So I suspect that when it came time for the upper stage to release the space vehicle (satellite or whatever) the solenoids/hydraulics/pneumatics failed.

And that could fall on the downstream components (the payload adaptor) or the upstream components (the space vehicle). So without recovering the wreckage, there will be a blame game and close readouts of the telemetry to try and determine whose fault it was.