This is not my thesis but someone else’s but as a counterpoint to this platitude, look at the difference between Lincoln versus Nixon. Both were leaders at pivotal times but they took very different ethical directions. Sometimes character and background DOES matter and we SHOULD expect more of our leaders. Just assuming they will all be corrupt makes up disengage from the process.
I think the idea is both are adding new files and also making changes to various files but his commits to the non-new files caused the conflict. Also, if both new files affect the same deliverable (like a DLL) then that could create a conflict in some cases (though I think that all depends on the build system).