In fairness, the CEO may have initially got a slightly distorted account of events. Anyone who tried to CYA and leave his exposed may be feeling nervous right now.
From the outset he did say they would investigate what happened. 24 hours later he has given quite a different interview, apologised, and stated this will never happen again.
What more could he have reasonably done. Some years ago, this would have been good. The pace of social media and the 24/7 news cycle today makes it very hard to get out in front of a bad story. We could all look clumsy in similar circumstances.