Yes, that's a "known issue" with the UI. You already know the solution here - use PowerShell.
Cannot add user

Sree
1,966
Reputation points
Exchange Admin Center: When trying to add a user to 'delivery management' from an Exchange Online Distribution group:
This fails when the a second user with the same 'first part of UPN' exists. E.g. 'user@Company portal .com' and 'user@student .contoso.com users are existing in our tenant. This is because the user is both student and staff so nothing wrong with that.
It seems the new Exchange Online GUI is not distinguishing on UPN.
With classis exchange admin this problem is not occuring, also powershell works fine.