It would only be malice if Boeing were trying to kill passengers - which seems unlikely.
But not knowing this would be an issue in a context like this is the definition of corporate incompetence. And that doesn't make things any better for Boeing.
This is literally mission critical design. You don't walk away from the wreckage shrugging and saying "Who knew?"
It doesn't matter if this was an engineering failure, a management failure, or an accounting failure. What matters is that it was a failure that killed people, and Boeing cannot be trusted to make safe air liners until the failure mode is discovered and eliminated.
No: one can still be malicious without outright intendending to kill passengers.
Boeing had their very existence and dominance in the aerospace sector severely threatened by A320neo. They needed MAX to be a hit at all costs, and this impetus, combined with the bean counterism their culture was infected with after the McDonnell Douglas merger ensured that any internal obstacles that threatened the time table for MAX would get dealt with in the short term cheapest and minimally effective way possible.
This is gross negligence at a minimum, blatant malfeasance at worst.
Maybe. But it won't be. That's not how corporate engineering works. And there's no appropriate pressure to change this. Boeing have far too much influence over the governing devices that are supposed to apply the healthy pressure which would result in the outcome you describe.
I'd wager that corporate engineering standards are supposed to be a lot more stringent when you're not manufacturing widgets, but objects like buildings, bridges, or commercial airliners.
That they didn't go into introspection mode, being the only entity who could (and should) have known what the potential issue was after the LionAir crash, and didn't move hell and high water to get to the ground of it (and they very obvisously didn't) is pretty much inexcusable.
That they're still smearing the pilots, puts them, in my book, into the scum of the earth category.
There should be a special place in hell for Boeing's senior management.
It can't incompetence because there will absolutely be engineers and designers who knew of the risks inherent to moving the CG and CoL and the deeper concerns of replacing these risks with a software solution (MCAS) which can relieve a human pilot of control. There is no way any self-respecting engineer with enough design influence would have been ignorant of the potential risks with this design.
It's probably not malice either because people generally aren't evil - especially those building planes which carry humans.
In saying that tho, there was almost certainly a "trade off" decision which was made, and thoroughly justified which traded safety for something else: most likely project delivery schedule. Was this motivated by economic reasons? Who knows. But the trade-off decision which sacrificed safety (even if in largely unknown, distant terms) would have definitely been there and was certainly a conscious decision. IMHO.
They were wrong about this of course, but you are suggesting malice while incompetence seems much more likely.