A DE has little to do with this, it’s a driver, it gets loaded when you plug in a compatible device, there’s no interaction. This should have been disabled 2 years ago when the gaping security holes were found, and actually Greg had attempted to have it disabled in 2022 but it kept getting pushed back.
It’s worth noting that this is a new line of ThinkPad, there’s a bunch of existing lines that will all keep the classic look. Though I feel like the name X9 isn’t great, but whatever.