"He was a vocal proponent of four out of the five failed fork attempts of bitcoin over the past couple of years."

Maybe he boasted what was best for the currency, but propaganda won in the end. So he switched knowing a manipulated currency is not an investment he is interested in?

It's important to realize that bitcoin's message is being manipulated by blockstream. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's conspiracy reality. Subreddits like /r/bitcoin had moderation schemes that buried support for the change, and boosted opposition.