(Aside). To expand slightly, what robertsdionne is highlighting is the changing usage of this expression. In its original sense, e.g an issue is so important that it is impossible to overstate its importance. It is now increasingly used the other way around.
Old me would have said it’s used wrongly, but this happens all the time with language. Especially things being used in the opposite of their original sense, e.g. inflammable for flammable.
In my mind, "cannot overstate" always meant "impossible to overstate", but I think some people interpret/intend "cannot understate" to mean something like "must not understate". I don't know if that's really what they're thinking, but it is how I make sense of it. I have come to just avoid such constructions.
Edit: reminds me of an ancient SNL skit with Ed Asner in which he's a retiring nuclear engineer and as he heads out the door he says to his incompetent co-workers "Just remember, you can't put too much water in a nuclear reactor".
Is there any case where your interpretation makes sense? Would you ever say 0.86 times fewer instead of 0.86 of the size?
If new is 1/7 the size of the old, then 7 * new = old. It takes 7 times of new_count to get the value of old_count. 1/7th of the old_count. 7x fewer seems like a shorthand, but I'm not a native English speaker.
When value is above 1, it's not really ambiguous anymore as only one interpretation makes sense. But I understand that it could still be incorrect, if it's not well defined term in English.
Not sure of the relative timing, but the new CEO is super focused on profitability/cash flow. In comparison to what he described as a ‘burning platform’ when he took over. So supersonic would have needed a brilliant business case to have survived his strategy.
Old me would have said it’s used wrongly, but this happens all the time with language. Especially things being used in the opposite of their original sense, e.g. inflammable for flammable.