Of course there are. Swift might be a viable alternative. There are also up-and-coming languages like Zig. But, like it or not, Rust has the best combination of features, mindshare, and community to make it a viable path for businesses today or in the very near future.
Sure, Ada/SPARK is another option. Listing out the various potential choices people can make is not especially interesting to me. I don't personally care about Rust. I care about people taking action to solve a frankly embarrassing problem in our industry.
That would, depending on implementation, either have limited impact (if it only applied in the context of a commercial relationship), or destroy FOSS (if it didn't).
The usual argument, health inspections don't destroy the little business selling sandwiches on the corner, or street regulations and those doing their own home made car.
