Or perhaps someone heard about using silver grease on a circuit breaker and decided they would "slather" some on the connection point point to the buss-bar, not knowing that the technique is used to grease the contacts of large breakers, not the connection points of residential breakers .... likely the result also of not knowing the contact resistance of that connection to the buss-bar.
I suppose that the parts of a circuit breaker one would slather with a silver grease, might be those that grip the box’s buss bar and Romex, could escape some.