I've been part of a European startup that added offices in Asia and the US, and we initially always partnered with local companies to do this. It's mutually beneficial. It allowed us to grow more quickly, and it allowed them to make relatively easy money (and, in our case, to dump some of their shittier employees on us without us knowing).
In Proton's case, they already knew each other because Tesonet had previously offered to provide infrastructure during a DDoS attack against Proton.
So maybe it's a conspiracy, or maybe it's just how things go. You can make up your own mind, but you should provide the facts when you make sinister insinuations.
I would assume that if they were astroturfing, they would be smart enough to use more than one account. Given that, I'm inclined to believe that you are part of an astroturfing campaign.
The summary is: if you use someone’s VPN, Tor, etc. you’re just setting yourself up. There is no privacy, and if you act like you want privacy, they’re going to pay more attention to you.
Entirely normal behaviour for a competitor to provide “HR assistance”.