This has been confirmed by his father. (Linus will probably be treated as a criminal if he confirms it himself).
When my oldest son [Linus Torvalds] was asked the same question: “Has he been approached by the NSA about backdoors?” he said “No”, but at the same time he nodded. Then he was sort of in the legal free. He had given the right answer …everybody understood that the NSA had approached him.
This will be particularly unsuccessful considering how the kernel is developed - and that the source is open. Does anybody believe that they did not approach Microsoft and Apple? And in those cases they are in total control of closed kernels - which makes it impossible to detect backdoors..
Linux is probably the only OS without a backdoor.
This is the video of the situation in question.I have seen it before and it all appears to be a joke. What is new is that Linus Torvalds Father confirms that it is serious.
More here