Gain of function serial infection techniques do not constitute natural evolution: they constitute lab-directed evolution.

That is for all intents and purposes man-made, unless one is splitting hairs, which much of the politicized media is doing.

Very unlikely to be the case here though, in particular because the same receptor domain is found in the wild (e.g. pangolins).

Yes, quite a lot of media have become politicised (the reason for which being quite well understood). None the less, the science is what it is - provisional. It is not surprising that commercial entities take particular positions to benefit from said politicisation.

In most countries at least, the science will ultimately give us the answer.